Americans And Chinese Internet Censorship

chowbok writes: "The Weekly Standard writes that despite expectations, the Chinese Government has been very successful in suppressing free internet access for their citizens. Key to this success was the assistance of Cisco, who built a giant firewall tailored to the state's needs, Yahoo (who helpfully censors search results and monitors online chats), and other Western companies."

Comments

Surprise!

[crush]

the internet no longer has independent self-motivated content producers as its major players: instead big business has come in and trampled all over the commons. Things are heading down a similar path everywhere in the so-called "democratic" countries: it turns out that the RaiseTheFist FBI raid that everyone was so concerned about was completely bogus. Bogus, in the sense that the government had no evidence against Sherman for the supposed "hacking" crimes, and the "fertilizer" that was supposed to be in his possession turned out to be potting soil. LOL! Check out the updates on this story of attempted perversion of the First Amendment.

Chinese Hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Before we become all bent out of shape about
what some American companies are doing in China,
we should look closely at what the Chinese,
Chinese companies, and Chinese in the USA
are doing to support mainland China. Allow me
to list several facts that have escaped the
radar of good-hearted but naive Americans.

1. Most Chinese in Hong Kong support the
return of Hong Kong to mainland China. A CNN/Time
survey showed, in fact, that 60% of the Chinese
in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong
to mainland China. (reference: "Poll: Hong Kong residents optimistic" http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9706/26/hong.kong.democra cy/index.html )
While East Timorese fought
and died for independence from the oppressive
Indonesian government, the Chinese in Hong Kong
cheered the mainland Chinese government.

2. The constitution of the Chinese living in
Taiwan supports the integration of both Tibet
and Mongolia into mainland China. While Tibetans
suffer and die at the hands of the Chinese
People's Liberation Army, the Chinese in Taiwan
support integrating Tibet into "One China".

3. The Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful
conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son
of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build
an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai.
(reference: "Sons of prominent Chinese team up
on chip venture",
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/05 /11/story/0 000035539 )

4. Senior Chinese military officials retired from
the Taiwanese military have gone to mainland China
and given military secrets about the American F-16
fighter jet to the Beijing government.
(reference: "Military secrets on sale to China"
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/07/11 /story/0 000043316 )

5. Most Chinese, including those living in
the United States of America, support the territorial
ambitions of mainland China. Most Chinese
support integrating Tibet into mainland China.
Most Chinese support integrating the Spratleys
into mainland China. Most Chinese support
integrating the Senkaku islands into mainland
China.

6. Most Chinese support Beijing's attempt to
use torture and murder to crush the Falun Gong.
Indeed, the Beijing government has funded
anti-Falun-Gong meetings within the United States
itself. These meetings within the United States
are attended by the very same Chinese who fight
with tooth and nail to stay permanently in the
United States of America.

7. These observations are not an exaggeration of
any kind. At your university, attend your local
meeting of Amnesty International. The engineering
and business schools will have plenty of Chinese
people, but there will be virtually _NO_ Chinese faces
in a meeting of Amnesty International. Chinese
(and other Orientals) are over-represented in
engineering and business schools, but they are
under-represented in meetings of Amnesty International. Why?

So few Americans really know anything about
Chinese society. We Americans are kind-hearted
and naive. We simply assume that the Chinese are
"just like us" and that the Chinese are simply
(financially) poorer versions of ourselves. In reality,
the Chinese are not like us. They are poor, but
they are _NOT_ like us.