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Censorship In China
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Have a look at
this Businessweek article:
a site was partly censored for 15 days because of a post uncomfortable to the Chinese government, and
this Mercury Center article
that proposes a more global view of the China/Taiwan issue. Surprisingly, both articles suggest that things are going better and better."
Very topical; the U.S. vote on
permanent normalized trade relations
is scheduled for today.
>I don't think Cuba poses much of a threat to the
>country with the largest military in the world
The US does NOT have the largest military in the world.
Know who does? China!
I don't have current numbers, but as of Desert Storm, the US was not even in the top five. There was a big stink about how we were facing the "mother of all wars" against Iraq, which, at the time, and the fourth largest military in the world.
At the time we were number seven. Ahead of Iraq was china, Russia, and vietnam. Desert Storm prolly bumped Iraq out of the picture and upped us to number six.
But then, we've done nothing but cut back the military ever since Desert Storm, so I really doubt that we're still that high. And we certianly do NOT have the largest military in the world. That dubious honor still goes to china.
john
Imagine all the people...
If intimidation (sending a threatening letter with the understanding that you can outspend the victim in courts) counts as "due process of law", then I'm not surprised that no one is able to respect the law anymore.
Any American who still finds comfort in the fact that he can't be attacked without "due process" is deluding himself. Is there any connection remaining between the process and justice? All that seperates us from the Chinese are a few words on a page that no one takes seriously anymore anyway.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And the chinese government *can* keep the internet under control. They *can* control the information infrastructure of the country. And they DO.
Yes.. there is internet in China.. and only those providers who comply with strict regulations can provide it.
There is no excuse.. We are rather hypocritical in this respect.
[theory]
It's probably a 'love thine enemy' powerplay; Get the Chinese to stop contemplating nuclear first strike against the US by buying them off with the US market. On the other hand, we couldn't really offer Fidel anything he would take in return for the same contemplation..
[/theory]
I'm all for a little China spanking: They deserve it. I'm also for a lift of the embargo with Cuba: They don't..
.sig: Now legally binding!
So what's the difference between a web site being shut down because it carried information the government didn't like, and being shut down because it carried information some large company didn't like?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
who think trading with China is a *good thing*.
How can you justify trading with a Chinese Communist government, still unapologetic about human rights violations (i.e. Tienemen Square), when you won't trade with Fidel Castro's Communist Cuba for the same reason?
I know this sounds very argumentative, but if money and market size is truly your motivation, then why no lift those same embargoes against Cuba? Standing on moral ground until the market is large enough just looks very hypocritical.
While I agree that China has made significant progress in the past 10 years, we still have to remember we are dealing with a country whose government is ideologically opposed to the United States.
On the plus side, China is going about with their reform in a very positive way. Unlike Russia, China is slowly moving towards a more capitalistic society... but sometimes I wonder if it's at the expense of it's citizens.
Ofcourse, if you look at recent events in the US in regards to the WTO meetings and the way the protestors were handled... perhaps we're not much different than China... and maybe we deserve eachother.
On an interesting note, it appears the the FBI considers TAIWAN a priority in counter-intelligence activities, and a hostile intelligence threat to the United States. Reno calls Taiwan an intelligence threat
Humorless sig goes here.
"Have a look at this Businessweek article: ... and this Mercury Center article ... . Surprisingly, both articles suggest that things are going better and better." Very topical; the U.S. vote on permanent normalized trade relations is scheduled for today.
Isn't it just an AMAZING coincidence that these papers just HAPPENED to run articles "suggest[ing] that things are going better", just as the vote is coming up in congress?
From time to time you may notice that something is very wrong in some part of the world, and suddenly there are a bunch of stories that say it's right, or rapidly improving. Or you may notice that everybody you know is on one side of the issue and the media talks like everybody is on the other. Or the crowds are bigger on one side of the demonstration and the media reports them as bigger on the other. Or the media reports tiny demonstrations on one side of an issue and ignores big ones on the other. Or the media reports polls that claim you, and everybody you know, are members of a tiny minority on some big issue. And you may wonder why.
And you may wonder why they bother, since EVERYBODY knows things are the other way around.
Consider this:
The congressmen live in a very sheltered environment. They're buried in their work. They almost never get back to their own districts to listen and "soak" in the opinions of their constituents. Whether at work or back home, almost everybody they talk to is trying to convince them to take a side on some issue. And they can't afford to run a LOT of polls on their own. So how do they guage their consituents opinions?
They watch the media.
If the media want to control the country's laws, they don't have to convert the voters. They just have to convince the legislators that the voters are converted. They don't have to fix things in China, they just have to convince the legislators that things are fixed. And so on.
And it's the same when the media wants the executive branch to interpret or enforce laws in some way, put pressure put on or take it off a group or a country, start or stop a war, and so on.
In the sixties they were referred to as "The Establishment Media" and treated as part of a monster. Now the phrase is rarely heard - because the people who once uttered it are members of the very establishment media they once railed against. The slant is different, but the game is the same.
"Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
China is... interesting. I spent 4 1/2 months there doing work on a feed mill in Langfang, PRC. (About 2 hours out of Bejing) Being very used to America, going to China was a real eye-opener. Porn? Forget it - it exists, but it's pretty rare. Don't even think about throwing a couple of playboys in your luggage and taking them with you either. (I didn't try it myself.)
Bibles? Forget it. A guy I knew would take a couple with him - but definitely not more than two or three. He was very religious, and didn't typically try and 'convert' the locals, but took some in case anyone was interested in reading about the Christian concepts. If they think you are planning on distributing religious materials, you can find yourself in hot-water quickly.
Don't talk bad about the govornment there. While here in the US there was always the half-joking concept of a 'card carrying communist' it's not much of a joke there. You won't know who is or isn't communist there, unless they pull out thier little red party book. And, talkin' bad about the Chineese govorment is a good way of attracting lots of unwanted attention.
There's lots of things not to take pictures of there. Don't have your pics developed in China - wait until you get home. I learned that one - some of the film I had developed never came back from the photo-developer there in China. I still have no idea what was objectionable in them...
It boils down to: No discussion on govornment. No discussion on religion. No discussion on sex. That's pretty much the rules I learned while I was there.
One other thing of note that's just completely strange to an American - here we are used to hearing what happens everywhere else in the world, and particularly, all the other sections of our own country. In China, it's much, MUCH slower for information to get around - most of it is still word of mouth the last time I was there. Newspapers and TV are a joke, as only 'approved' stuff get through.
Granted - this was also 4 years ago that I was there. Things may well have changed by now.
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Chi na bans Taiwan's Madonna
Beijing has banned one of Taiwan's top pop
stars after she sang the island's national
anthem at last Saturday's inauguration of
President Chen Shui-bian.
A-Mei, who is wildly popular on the mainland,
has been permanently blacklisted in China,
officials said.
US soft drinks giant
Coca-Cola has been
forced to drop a
multi-million dollar
advertising campaign in
China featuring A-Mei.
Sigged!
but I would imagine since Cuba is only a short boat ride away from the USA and China is way across the Pacific ocean, Cuba could pose a more serious direct threat than the Chinese.
Cuba a threat to the US? How? The only threat they ever posed to the US was as a staging ground for the Russians, which is hardly the case any more. It's not like they could invade the US is it?
Plus, wasn't the embargo placed back in the 60's when we WERE having problems with Cuba?
So we should keep it in place now? This seems to be what you're implying.
It's not the fact that they're communist moreso as to how they treat their citizens and how much of a threat they are to the USA.
From what I've read and seen Cuba, although extremely poor, does not treat its citizens badly. They get free education and health care, and in fact they produce a lot of doctors which work across South and Central America.
It looks to me like you've fallen for the anti-Red propaganda which was used during the Cold War to justify US "action" against Cuba, but which is sadly outdated today.
future headlines:
Vanity in Hollywood!
Pot in Amsterdam!
Greed on Wall Street!
Mounties in Canada!
/. : News for Shut-ins. Stuff that's obvious.
Forewarning, this is all IMHO and I don't have any facts to back it up, however these are some conclusions myself and others who were talking about this have came to...
First of all, the reason why the US politics is so involved with China:
The Clinton Administration recieved large amounts of funding from China during (the early part?) of his campain. Now after denying this as an influence, China has a large influence on the Presidents reputation and standing. Blackmail is a possibility. Another could be the alleged rumors of Clintions involvment with communism and his views on it. I know not what these are, but perhaps its something he believes in and is working toward. Or I could just be talking out of my ass.
China, while not nessicarily a *rich* country overall, does have some wealth, at least in its government. A highly contraverial possiblity is that while we may not like/agree with china, we do have the possiblity to make money off of these deals....though I believe that it would cost us more in the long run
Censorship:
What about it...they're a comunist country, they control the media just as business controls ours (USA). Our governemt is influenced by other governments and business and in a since is just another big business. With enough money, you can make damn near anything happen....
Sorry if I went really OT
and don't flame me for my spelling i know it sucks.
Hmmm, let's see: In Miami, many Cuban performers cannot perform at local theatres because of the outrage from the Cuban-exile community. I was spat upon when trying to catch a piano recital from a person who had once visited Cuba. Art studios locally have banned Cuban artists. Some have protested Borges in school libraries. Some have said that the difference here is that in China censorship is government approved and in Miami not so. Nope. The politicians here look the other way.
As a person with Hispanic and Asian roots it is doubly difficult to condemn other countries when ideals of freedom, the basis for the Constitution, are being trampled locally.
Even something as simple and innocent as a nude photograph can be prohibited here. Because of a vocal minority, a black & white nude photograph was censored from a local high school art show. Not long ago, a nude, non-erotic sculpture was also censored. Though I respect the right of a school administrator to maintain order, at what point is it crossing the line to some nightmarish Orwellian vision?
As much as I despise censorship, it is somewhat disingenuous to decry foreign violations when we (at least in Miami) are as guilty.
If anyone cares, here is a list of countries currently under embargo by the U.S.:
Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China (PRC), Cuba, Estonia, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Libya, Lithuania, Macao (Macau), Moldova, North Korea, Romania, Russia, Syria, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Yugoslavia (Serbia), Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam
sig this
My dad, who works in Beijing, China, is a geneticist. So when the news broke that human chromosome 21 had been mapped, I sent him a link to the BBC News article on the event. He replied that he couldn't read the article in China, and asked me to email him the text. Same thing happened with the chromosome 21 article published in Nature . Had to email him the PDF.
I think the US will vote yes on the trade status of China. After the European Union voted yes just last week, I don't see how the US could say no, just from an economic standpoint.
The human rights violation issue is irrelevent to our government, money comes first. They put up a small show to make it look like they care, but all they've done is delay what they will inevetably do. Keep in mind the United states government doesn't have a very good track record itself, the only difference is that our government typically uses a few layers of insulation. It could be simple complacency as in the case of Indonesia taking over East Timor (the US didn't care, this was in the 70's, while about 25% of the population was killed if I remember correctly). Or it could be supporting and installing leaders (dictators) and training armies as was done in central America in the 80's, and in Africa as well. Even at home, we see police operating at oppressive levels, especially in the inner city. Keeping your population subverted works differently in a "free", capitalist society: the government needs a few layers of deniability, and you rarely hear about this stuff anyway. I'll bet some readers won't even beleive what I've said, or, not understand how bad it really is.
Anyway, onto the censorship issue. Barring some cyberpunk future where corporations own the landscape, China really could become the next superpower. I can't see the US being able to change enough to maintain the lead technologically and economically. You look at all the bills being passed here (DMCA, etc), and look at how much this will stifle competition and innovation. You can't maintain a lead without these things. US corporations are just unwilling to lose some profits now for long term success.
Of course, China will have a tough go at it since they aren't a very free society. The US isn't much better, there is plenty of indoctrination and censorship used by the press, and a truly free society would be a form of anarchy anyway. Look at what they have going for them though. The largest population in the world, a population that puts education near the top of it's priority list (I mean culturally, I don't know how much the government puts into it percentage wise), and markets that haven't been developed yet. By this last item I mean that they don't have a lot of infrasturcture stuck in current or (especially) past technologies like the US and Japan do. All these things give them a lot of potential. Whether or not China can take a lead sometime in the distant future without some Democratic revolution, I don't know. I think they're the most interesting country to watch in the future.