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Chinese Government Further Restricts Internet Cafes
bwhalen writes: "Once again, China is demonstrating how much they love their citizens to have open communication. They have closed/demanded restructuring of a few thousand Internet Cafes; here's the story." Previous stories on China make clear that the Chinese government and the Chinese citizenry don't see eye-to-eye on how this whole Internet thing should work.
During the Cold War, the US ran a service called "Radio Free Europe" for providing uncensored news to people in countries behind the Iron Curtain. Perhaps when prices come down, the West should organize a wireless network for the use of people in China, North Korea, etc.
I visited Beijing, China for approximately 6 weeks during the spring of 2000. I used various Internet cafes to check my e-mail, browse the web, and use RealVideo. In some cafes I found that www.cnn.com was blocked, in others it was wide open. I think that the cafes usually found a way to get around the censorship if they wanted to.
An important thing to remember is that in China there are one set of rules for foreigners, one set of rules for regular citizens, and one set of rules for Communist party members. Foreigners and party members can probably look at any content they want. Only the proles must be shielded from the indecent outside world.
My observation of Chinese college students, however, indicates that they are far more fascinated with the Internet than American college students. One local Internet cafe charged 5 renminbi (3 renminbi could buy you a plate of dumplings next door) per hour for Internet access. Students would be there at all hours to send e-mail to friends in other cities and to correspond with people they had never met. Recently some auction sites were becoming popular.
The chinese government is in a difficult position as they want the educated class to be able to use technology for productive purposes. However, they do not want the educated class to be poisoned by outside ideas.
Stuart Eichert
Stuart Eichert
newsflash: communist governments censor their citizens
/.'ers whine when someone posts something about alan cox 24 hours late...
really?
...damn, and
Good question. I don't know the whole answer, but there are some points that I think that contribute:
I visited southern China briefly once, and to my pampered Western eyes it was a hellhole. The pollution was unlike anything I had experienced, the poverty everywhere I looked, the polarized distribution of wealth far more stark than anything I've ever seen, the political corruption that created that division obvious (the number of Mercedes-Benzes with military numberplates, and the fact that the only properly constructed buildings were either built by foriegn multinationals or the Army gives it away pretty quickly). While the rapid improvement in living standards was undoubtedly there (nobody seemed to be starving, and many of the poor farmers seemed to be acquiring television sets and refrigerators), we see the relative poverty, not the improvement.
As far as political freedom goes - the part I visited, sure, the obvious signs of political oppression have been toned down. But when you see the place where hundreds of Falun Gong protestors were apparently arrested and carted off to prison camps, again, you don't see the improvement from the days of the Cultural Revolution, you compare it to your own country where such arrests and indefinite detention for peaceful political protest would be unthinkable.
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Well, if you remember Chinese history, this is EXACTLY what you don't want. There are billions of people there. A revolution would be a big huge gamble! A bloody one would likely involve millions of deaths.
Better to have a peaceful revolution, slowly.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
First of all, the article didn't say WHY the 2000 (out of 58000) Internet cafés had been shut down. For all we know, it could be because they used pirated software.
Second, the CNN article says:
"China's laws broadly ban "socially destabilizing content," breaches of public security, "divulging state secrets" and Internet pornography."
How is that different from the.. say.. US laws? Nazi propaganda is socially destabilizing content and is forbidded in many western countries. Communism was considered destabilizing content and was forbidded in the USA for many years. etc. etc.
Third:
"Authorities closely monitor Web site content in search for buzzwords such as Taiwan, Tibet and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, Web executives say."
Yeah? Well, the Echolon system and the NSA and CIA closely monitor *ALL* electronic traffic in search for buzzwords such as bomb, C4, Bill Clinton etc.
Could we get a little less US propaganda in the news and a little more of the ACTUAL facts. I'd like to know FACTS about why these Internet cafés were shut down. I don't doubt that it had to do with censorship but I didn't see any facts in the story.
One of the biggest internet cafes I've seen -- it's located on the south end of Peking University. I haven't been back in more than a year, but I think it's pretty much taken control of the entire street. (it's a good location, too). (some of it was recently torn down for new construction or something).
A page of pictures
more pictures
the about-us page :
Remember to bring a grain or two of salt, but translated, some of the interesting things are
They have 1800 computers (started with 25)
They have 20Mbit connectivity (DDN direct line?)
16,000 users/daily
open 24 hours
have trained 1,800 people
have been reported on by 2300 different media organizations.
What people do at them
I remember the most common activity was playing games. Lots of folks playing some weird sniper game and starcraft. At night, always a fool or two in the back flipping between tasks/peeping porno.
Lots of BBS/bulletin board action now, I hear...
Hmmm lastly, last time I checked, the graduate student dorms (and possibly some of the undergrad dorms) at Peking University had ethernet that connected to a internal China network. People sometimes use a program called ProxyHunter to find ways out of the internal network.
Damn, when I first came in 1998, Feiyu was a crappy little place where there were 25 computers and a not-so-knowledgable staff. Things have changed, I guess.
there is no thing
what else could you want?
While Marx never saw Communism in the way it has been realized in the many "Communist" governments of the 20th century (in fact, he thought Russia was the last country on earth to be ready for Communism), the problem with Communism is that it assumes all humans place the same value on all things, from goods and services to love and happiness.
In fact, however, everyone places different values on things. Communism thus needs to leverage something in order to create a set of shared values for society. This is inevitably the political system and the result is inevitably totalitarianism.
He was in the act of smashing in a vehicle with a fire extinguisher. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.
And the maximum jail term, I believe, is 5 years.
In China, unelected government officials arbitrarily determine that they do not want their citizens having access to the free Internet. They thus shutdown the means of getting free access. No one protests since they risk a death sentence for doing so.
Several key differences here:
While the US is way out of line on the Dmitry issue, there is absolutely no comparison between China and the USA.
L5R had to change their card backs because of USOC bullying. The original logo was 5 rings in a, well, ring, and looked nothing like the Olympic symbol. But in such matters the Olympic thugs have total authority, granted by Congress.
This should be interesting to watch in the next few years.
One big problem for most people evaluating the situation in China from outside is that it is difficult to recognize the vast range social parameters can take. Even in the US, some laws are so good that people constantly sing its praise (think First Amendment) while some are so bad that they are considered national shame by many (think DMCA). Now take that distance as unit. Starting at First Amendment, going in the direction of DMCA for, say, between 0.5 and 5 units, you will cover perhaps most of Chinese laws in terms of restriction of freedom. If you go still several times further, you'll reach the range of some more terrible states existing today, or the state of China when Nixon visited it. That state was not even defined by the laws of that time, as there were essentially none.
So depending on what your reference point is, you could say that China has made tremendous progress while at the same time it has a long way to go. If you think these two are contradictory, you will have a long time to argue which is right.
But there is a lesson to be learned. In the past century, apart from one exception (South Africa), the best support for authoritarian regimes has been the sanctions and blockades from democratic countries, and the biggest initiator of reform comes from open exchange with democratic countries. It was lucky for Chinese people that Nixon had the guts to visit it when it was in such a miserable state (even though his motivation was largely to forge an anti-Soviet alliance). Other nations still under sanctions now unfortunately have to endure many more years of dictatorship.
What about the human rights situation in China now? Based on the media report here, I would say it is so much better than it used to be. Those who consider this as the worst situation that could be simply knows too little about history, especially the darker side of history.
So is Olympics good for China? Of course it is. It is good for the Chinese people. It might also be good for the Communist government, but I don't care. I consider the Chinese people much more important than the Chinese government.
When I left China, it was hard to imagine owning a telephone unless you are an official, in that case you get it for free. It is now difficult for me to contemplate the number of cell phones in Chinese cities, and it is an eye-opener to see the prevalence of Internet cafes. We hated Bush Sr. then when he sent envoys to China so soon after Tiananmen. But in retrospect that might have done more to improve the lives of Chinese people than his son is ever capable of.
Western countries like to use carrot and stick to induce democracy in other countries. The problem is that the distance between carrot and stick is so limited it does not cover even a tiny fraction of the possible range. Static policies based on stereotype do not work. What will work is a dynamic policy that actually reward changes in the positive direction.
I have to tell you all that you do not understand the situation here in China. Do not say that I am not a free person here.
China is a nation of one billion people. We are as free as you or me. Would I write that which I cannot condone? Would the person who pays me one million dollars ever disagree with such a thing? Of course not.
We should not discuss this matter. I must leave now.
What you have to remember is that the International Olympic Committee is amazingly corrupt. Really mind-bogglingly crooked. 60 Minutes did a special on this a while ago, as I recall. In addition, the IOC does not neccessarily support more deomcratic governments as a whole. Its president, after all, was a Spanish Fascist during the Spanish Civil War.
So, I doubt the IOC even seriously considered the human rights angle, but just made noises about human rights so watchdog groups would be happy. The real reason probably has more to do with gifts and cash changing hands, and perhaps a little bit with genuinely excellent athletic facilities.
I'm the stranger...posting to
It's interesting, and an old story that ricochets around the world. Many Marxist and totalitarian communist regimes are desperately trying to come to terms with the most effective tool for democratic change yet devised.
No, not the internet
Web servers, chat servers, bulletin boards, usenet, and a host of other applications send news, opinions, ideas around the world faster than any single government could hope to filter it.
In the past it has been typewriters, telephones, and the word processor (all of which you need a license to own in China) which could be reasonably controlled by the state.
Cellphones and internet cafes have become rampant in China. The chineese government already admits that they cannot control the cellphone boom, and SMS messaging. The internet cafes provide an easy way for any chineese citizen to get online, and there are many ways around the state filter boxes, so many in fact that it is practically impossible to stop people from finding and using proxy-servers available all over the country.
Perhaps the communist's rule will not fall due to revolution
I for one.. think that is a wonderful thing.
"Don't worry about the problems you have in mathematics, I assure you mine are much greater." - Einstein c.1919