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Taking My Freedom With Me to China?
Solo Han asks: "I'm considering a move to China next year, and while I have just as many problems as y'all do with the government, I still like the freedoms afforded me, especially when it comes to access of information. Chinese citizens, however, do not have the same freedoms, as we are constantly reminded here on slash-o-dot. Pr0n, mp3z, and games aside, what are the things that those of you in the Celestial Kingdom know you cannot access, and specifically, what are the websites, search engines, news sites, and other sites that are classed as potentially 'dangerous' material? This brings me to my overall question: is the censorship that real, that hard to get around, and how do you do it? What methods and technologies are you aware of or use to circumvent the Great Firewall of China?"
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
Does that answer your question?
What methods and technologies are you aware of or use to circumvent the Great Firewall of China?
Somehow I don't think it's wise to do such circumvention if you want to stay there short-term/long-term/permanently.
What would US officials think if a foreigner, who is planning to move to USA, talks about how stupid the whole security thing is, and asks for advice to get around it?
If USA can attack another country "Just Like That"(tm), I would consider Chinese's censorship a godsend given it's only imposed within its own country. If you decided to move there, respect its laws; if you don't agree with its laws, go somewhere else. You always have a choice.
At home I have unlimited access to the internet, but at work I can only access port 80, and I would never try to get around company's security policy because it's restricting my freedom to surf, although others might still try that.
And remember, when you get caught, it's going to be ugly no matter where you are.
So in my opinion, if you want to go into other's territory, make sure you find out what can and cannot be done there, and stick to the rules.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
This may be obvious to most people (I sure have missed obvious things in the past), but some background as to why you're thinking of moving to China might put your question into proper context.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Maybe you can access a proxy and view through it?
I think I'd rather get caught running drugs in Mexico and end up in a Mexican prison than attempt what you're suggesting and get caught.
> I'm considering a move to China next year.
Sorry, I stopped reading after that.. Good luck, you'll need it!
Must-not-watch TV!
No sir you are wrong. There is NO censorship here in China, none at all! Yes siree, everything is free and open. As we say here in Chi
You have a constitutionally protected right to be wrong, and I the right to ignore you.
...they don't care. Nearly all of this censorship is only aimed at chinese citizens, and then only those that happen to be a convenient PR target. Unless you start actively trying to overthrow the government or anything daft like that, they're not interested.
So basically your question is stating "I'm going to China and expect to be able to break their laws as I was fortunate enough to be born in a more free society."
Don't whine to the foreign media when you're jailed as a subversive influence.
Trolling is a art,
Do you really want to consider "getting around" the censorship. It's not like they're playing a game over there. They're not setting up challenges for the techno-elite to figure out how to access Slashdot from being the Great Firewall of China. It's not like "Gosh, I can use a proxy! I can tunnel... they'll find this very clever and I'll be able to do whatever I want."
You'll be breaking the law.
In China.
Are you a big fan of breaking the law in general? Are you a big fan of spending days, weeks, or years in a Chinese political prison? Do you like having your legs unbroken?
I would highly recommend against going to China with a plan of "Getting around" the censhorship. It's not just a technological hurdle to overcome, it's the law. And as a general policy, you don't want to be breaking the law in foreign countries. Their jails aren't as nice as ours.
--
RumorsDaily
What kind of problems? Did you sell military secrets to the Chinese?
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Why do you think China has some of the best hackers in the world? The "necessity is the mother ...." comes to mind.
Gimme that booze you little pumpkin pie hair cutted freak!
Why don't you move to China and do all of those things while maintaining a blog of your adventure. Thus, if your blog suddenly disappears or is abandoned, then we will know for sure what happens in China when you do those things..
To help fit in when you go to China, I suggest you participate in one of their native religions. This will help you get along great in your new home.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Is the danger of getting around the censors worth it? Do you have a family? How do you feel about going to a Chinese prison?
I do not know what the legal climate in China is but you may want to think about about it very carefully. What risk will you be putting yourself and or your family if you get caught? It could be as little as a polite warning or getting run over by a tank.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What methods and technologies are you aware of or use to circumvent the Great Firewall of China
I'd tell you, but then they'd have to kill me.
-geekd
I wonder if tor works from inside the great firewall of China. Any Chinese folks who've tried it and care to comment?
Here is a comprehensive list of sites banned in China: http://asp-cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/list.ht ml
I haven't tried this myself as I've never been in China, but I've heard that searches via elgooG would effectively bypass "the great firewall". Just a rumour for me though. Could anyone verify this?
Obviously some people break the rules, use outside proxies not yet blocked by the government, and get access to prohibited information. I've been there, three times. I know some of this. And I don't recommend it. If caught, and lucky, you'll just be thrown out of the country. It can be worse.
The question you should be asking yourself is: Just how much do I want to have a long, happy, and enjoyable time living in the PRC?
Why not try living like a real Chinese citizen for a few months just to see what it's like? Why else go, if you're only trying to live your Western-style life just in a new location?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Instead of moving to Mainland China, move to Taiwan?
Having lived there, well
a) hope you know chinese
b) public interenet, cds, etc. is OK, and there may be more there than is let on. Note: they banned this because it's already out.
c) there are proxies that will let you circumvent, but they will know you did that. It's a moving target game.
other notes
- self censorship challenges; Americans (I'm one) are loud and boisterous. Like to challenge boundarys and assumptions. That's not their culture and frowned upon.
Basically, it's going to be different, and depends entirely where you are in that vast ranging country.
I am concerned for your safet. I wouldn't recommend circumventing anything. When you live in a PoliceState (Communist or Fascist) a Western style prank like hacking will land you in prison for life. They will lock you in a room and throw away the room. If you want to read the news I recommend you move to a place with even a small bill of rights.
what are the things that those of you in the Celestial Kingdom know you cannot access, and specifically, what are the websites, search engines, news sites, and other sites that are classed as potentially 'dangerous' material?
If you even have to ask these questions, you're hopelessly naive, and will be eaten alive by the place to which you're headed. What, did you think that all that scary talk about being arrested and jailed for your opinions (or for even visiting web sites where you can read someone else's opinions) was just Republicans trying to make socialists look bad? It's real!
I'd be astounded if there's a single "legal" reader of this web site in China at all. Now, while it still lasts, you might consider moving to Taiwan.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
and dont use the people's explorer of internet. But i hear the chinese food there rocks (or as they call it there, 'food')
I recently spent the better part of a year living in Guangzhou followed by a few months in Chengdu. As for Porn, it was being sold on the streets. I found there to be no real enforcing of any of these "bans" the central government keeps talking about. The conry is actually very free on a day to day basis, as long as you don't bring religion or something similar into a School you're teaching at, you're ok
When you're in a foreign country, you're obliged to obey their rules. Accidentally violating some custom/rule and winding up in jail is one thing, but when you go to a country and violate their laws willfully and with premeditation there is no reason at all why the US should expend its diplomatic resources saving your sorry ass.
If you don't like their rules, don't move there.
Just be sure to talk about Falun Gong wherever you go in China, and they'll love you.
So the Chinese Army did not send in tanks to stop students protesting?
So those executions I saw where they had the people kneel and put a bullet in their brain never happened?
So there really is freedom of religion and speech in China?
So the Chinese government does not make huge amounts of money from prison labor?
And the Chinese did not lob missiles over an island full of people to keep them in line?
Just asking if these are all myths that I have seen on TV?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm actually reading your post from China right now, and I'm not entirely sure what you're asking:
Do you really want to ... play ... a game. Are you a big fan of ... the ... general? Are you a big fan of ... Chinese? Do you like ... your legs?
I would highly recommend ... going to China. Their jails are ... nice.
Taking my freedom with me to jail
On how to take his limited Chinese freedom of information searching to Chinese prison.
Taking My Freedom With Me to China?
Taking My Cocaine With Me to the US?
Taking Kiddy Porn With Me to England?
Taking Salman Rushdie With Me to Iran?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
A simple unencrypted squid proxy. I live in China, and some sites are blocked (BBC News, Miami Herald, etc). I set up a proxy on a linux box in the USA, and I use it whenever I encounter a blocked site (hit F12-x in Opera to toggle).
It's also useful when there's simply a bad connection or slow speed. Often, I can't get a good connection to some site or other, and it's not blocked, I know it's up, but the crappy infrastructure here drops my packets. So, even if there were no Great Firewall, I'd still have my proxy handy. The Great Firewall isn't too concerned with English language websites. As far as I know, only Chinese and English language sites are blocked...any other nationalities get off scot-free.
And don't worry about getting clubbed in the head by the cops, or anything stupid like that. China is just like everywhere else...you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Hell, we smoke joints openly on the street. Nobody knows what it smells like. We went out on a lake, and the boatman asked, "why are you 6 people sharing one cigarette...you don't have enough money to afford cigarettes for everyone?"
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Our company has employees in China, and their work requires that they be able to access our corporate systems. So, they've got a VPN connection through the GFC, that VPN connection also includes unfiltered Internet access. From what I'm told by our Network Admin, unfiltered access is something of a status symbol over there.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
I've taken a few trips to P.R.C. since my wife is from there. I had a few problems trying to upload photos from a digital camera to a server back home (yes, I used disposable passwords). First I attempted to FTP the files directly to the server. I found that the FTP connection was dropped after transferring about 8k bytes. Next, I tried http put to my web server with a similar result. Finally I tried to send each picture as an e-mail attachment. This also failed. It seems that China does not want any unauthorized information going OUT of the country. I finally tried running an FTP server locally on the dynamic IP (163.net) and connecting to it from outside (after telnetting to my US based server). Amazingly enough it worked! Files can be moved out of China from an internal server but not from a client.
As far as free access to information goes, good luck. They seem to have several layers of control. The first layer is DNS. Just about any US based radio or TV domain name will not resolve. You might be able to get to the site if you can get the IP address (perhaps using a method similar to above). Many sites use the hostname in the http query to determine which site to serve, in these cases you're out of luck. There may be DNS and web proxies that you can use but these are fleeting.
--
Sigs are a waste of space
I think Solo Han may be chanelling Mao. You are basically asking people to explain how to circumvent their government's controls, when that government is known to do some rather painful things to those that subvert the government?
I call Shenanagins, the question is either just troll BS, or the the guy asking it is too dumb to utilize the answers.
Face it, would anyone comming to the US really ask, in a public forum, how do I get around the US's stupid drug laws? (Please don't answer this, I'm trying to nurture a little faith in humanity)
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
though I'm in the USA for the moment..
You probably will not notice a substantial abridgement of your freedoms when you get there. However, due to the developing nature of China, many processes are highly aggravating.
Sure, you cannot access porn online- as easily as in the USA. It is still there, and you can find it.
One thing that really has pissed me off was that I left my computer at home in the USA running a server registered with DynDNS- I'm guessing all the domains with DDNS are blocked by china. I justed wanted access to my own stuff at home, not to start an insurrection.
All I can say is, feel free to express yourself at the right time, but use discretion.
If you want access to all your files, buy a 1GB flashdrive and copy all your important stuff on to that. Buy 2 or 3 if you need, or take a laptop.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
They are very unlikely to do this to a foreign citizen unless what you are doing is or can be construed to be espionage or subversion. They are welcoming foreigners with open arms because they want your capital, skills, knowledge etc. so they are less likely to come down on you than one of their own citizens.
If what you were doing was offensive enough to them and you got caught you would almost certainly be deported which is true of just about any country where you are on a visa. If you are openly violating their law there is always a chance you would go to jail but thats true of any country. The U.S. embassy probably would try to spring you unless you were getting what you deserved.
At this point I think its a subject of debate on whether the China or the U.S. is actually worse in this regard. Hundreds if not thousands of foreigners have been locked up in the U.S. in the aftermath of 9/11 without due process, without lawyers, without trials, without access to their families, and often under varying degrees of stress, sleep deprivation for example, if not rising to the level of torture. About the only thing many of them were guilty of are various visa infractions, which should at most have resulted in deportation, not indefinite detention without due process.
China probably does it on a larger scale but the U.S. and Americans no longer have the slightest morale high ground on which to challenge oppression and lawlessness in China. Certainly censorship isn't as bad in the U.S. but as far as unlawful arrests go the U.S. is at the same level as China. You can thank the Bush administration for lowering the U.S. to the same level has authoritarian states around the globe in this respect.
@de_machina
Sure, you lived there and supported the country. You could have found an instructor here who came from China because HE wanted to be free and teach his art. Where you learn martial arts is not important. 'Who' matters more than anything. And don't tell me we don't have ang good instructors here.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
if people are insufficiently informed on the matter and you have access to information that balances the view more, perhaps you'd like to share it with the rest of the class?
h ina.zhao/
a lot of people have a less than positive view of the chinese government, for good reason: it's autocratic and at times has zero qualms about flexing its power: witness what happened when zhao ziyang left power. for his remorse over the violence used in tiananmen square, he was placed under house arrest since 1989. this is the former head of state. don't believe me? look here: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/16/c
ed
Hello, I know it is possible to circumvent the Chinese Firewall and such, but exactly how do you do it? Who is your contact in the Network Administration Administration? Do you discuss these issues with other people inside the firewall? What are their names and do you know where they live? No, I am just curious. I do not work for the glorious and envied government of PRC.
I will assume that the poster is an American citizen working in China, since he/she did not mention being there before. There is such a thing as extradition. Yes, that means they can't just randomly arrest US citizens for surfing the BBC and proceed with a closed-door trial w/ US Embassy intervention. Chances are, the poster will not try to start a revolution or organize a mass protest and will not be at any risk. And even if he/she did, the government would find it simply easier to just revoke the Visa and deport him/her than unlawfully detain the person. Unauthorized jailing of US citizens is equal to an international incident and it would just be easier to deport the offender. It sounds like the parent saw one too many viewings of The Red Corner. I'll say this again, the Chinese government is WAYYY too inefficent and lazy to pursue ex-pats looking at western news sources. They've got bigger fish to fish.
If you're not trying to topple the Chinese government from the inside, you've got nothing to worry about.
I know that sounds "insightful" from where you are, but I live in China, and nobody gets "dragged off in the dead of night". It's just like everywhere else. If you get into legal trouble, you just bribe your way out of it. If you go to China intending on overthrowing the government, you can expect to end up in their version of Leavenworth, just like any foreigner who goes to another country to make trouble.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The Christian Science Monitor, which is a non-partisan newspaper I like to read online sometimes, wrote an article about Tiananmen Square. How many students were killed, run over by tanks, and otherwise butchered? The answer: We don't know. In fact, evidence is starting to show that no students were killed in the square at all. When there's no foreign reporters around, and the government is the only one that's talking, it is indeed dramatic misportrayal of the facts that tends to take over. That said, estimates of fatalities outside the square range vary, but it was *after* the peaceful protest left the square.
Secondly, I listen to WMBI, which is decidedly right-leaning. Yet, on one of their programs, one of the church leaders in Bejing reported that the government was not stifling state-allowed religions... in fact, the government was very much hands-off. (As Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in China, it may not be coincedence.) It was a different voice from the now-familiar persecution of believers in China, although, once again, that type of persecution was reported to have gone on in the rural areas -- it just wasn't as widespread as most Americans would believe.
I very much appreciate these examples as a welcomed, different view into what China is actually like versus what everyone says it's like.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Yes *chinese* people are arrested... But I wasn't arrested for telling Chinese their policy on Taiwan was utter bullshit. Then again, I was not making a public spectacle.
I've lived in china, and though it is not quite a utopia, I'll be living there for a few years more.
Taiwan is cool too; Taipei is a happening place.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
When you are in a foreign country you are subject to their laws; period.
Any exceptions to this are them being generous and choosing to make an exception for political reasons.
It really bothers me when I see people make claims that are untrue. "Unauthorized jailing of US Citizens". Generally there is no such thing, in some countries without a significant legal system it is possible. China does have a legal system. (Whether you like it, or not.)
Never enter a foreign country with the intent to violate it's laws. You are likely to find out the hardway there are repercussions and that your country of origin has no inherent right to intercede.
You might want to look into the incidences where U.S. law enforcement personnel have been arrested and thrown in jail for kidnapping offenses on Canadian soil. I can assure you the U.S. government wasn't thrilled with the outcome.
In many countries, the government also restricts access to some things, but it's very narrow and with at least some attempt at justifications (whether you agree with the justification or not). In fact, off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of that is really off-limits in the west is kiddie-porn (though Nazi stuff is also nearly as taboo in some parts of Europe).
Forget the details and look at the big picture: you're getting yourself into a situation where there is no social contract. The Chinese government doesn't feel the need to justify anything and is simply unaccountable to its people. The list of what is restricted can change, and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. You can try technical workarounds, but you'll live in fear of being discovered.
Nothing is worth that.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Freedom is not an incompatable world view.
Democracy is not an incompatable world view.
Human rights are not an incompatable world view.
Equality under the law is not an incompatable world view.
All of these are basic rights for all human beings. The fact that the Communist government of China has refused to recognize them is not due to "an incompatable world view," its due to a small nomenklatura of Communist elites denying these rights to their people. The ideas themselves are no more alien to China than they were alien to Japan in 1945.
- Crow T. Trollbot
You are wrong, sir, I can indeed waste my day away reading slashdot in china.
Many news sites in English are not blocked...yet, who knows.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
VE RI
TAS
...you will be rewarded by being able to purchase almost any piece of software known to man for around $3. Any movie for about $1, and game for about $3.
There are malls there that are huge, and hold nothing but pirated software. Also, they copy EVERYthing, even entire cars. Honda in fact hired them for some parts manufacturing because they copied theirs so well for a much lower cost. If you can't beat them... They even introduced a complete copy of a "GM" car before GM even announced it. They are absolute masters at copying everything, manufacturing those copies, and even industrial espioniage. And the speed at which they do it is amazing.
It's a bootleg economy. Enjoy it I say!
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
It seems to me very few of you have actually been to China or even understand how the system there works. For the same reason why Europeans think we're a country of hicks driving around in a pickup with shotguns who elected a idiot to office is why you think the Chinese is some sort of omni-present superpower that oversees all of the minute details of its citizens' lives and takes sadistic pleasure in torture. You're taking in media hype and a fear of the unknown. China has its share of problems: freedom of speech and freedom of religion come to mind. These are serious issues that need to be addressed but that doesn't mean everytime you commit a crime in China you will be sent into "reeducation." That also doesn't mean if you use a proxy to surf the web that they're going to break your thumbs. The Chinese government are too busy with the same serious issues that the US is dealing with to be bothered by these minor offenses.
While it may sound like the Chinese police force operate a Gestapo-like regime but that's far from the truth. Believe or not, China has laws and 99% of the time, they are followed. They also have lawyers that will free an innocent man. Some people vision of a totalitarian society governed by "The Party" are just too far fetched. Do they honestly think that the police operate on whatever laws they please and the people live in constant fear? I'll tell you from actually lived in China that it is hardly the case. People are way too reoccupied w/ making money to give a shit. Just remember the same media that is telling you to be afraid of China is the same one that ran the special on 20/20 about the wide-spread dangers of drier lint fires and the world-wide SARS epedemic.
And they change daily. When I was there for a few months last summer, all British news sites (BBC, Guardian, etc.) were blocked. Google groups are blocked. The SF Chronicle would be up and down depending on the day, as would Yahoo news. In general, web access is completely problematic. Earlier posters are correct - unless you are trying to do something to educate the masses, you'll be fine. They aren't after knowledgeable individuals or foreigners, they want to make sure it's not easy to join an emerging movement. Even if they were, it would only result in a bribe unless you were to be made into an example. By the way, China is lovely. The people are very sweet and warm. If you can, learn some Mandarin or Cantonese before you get there.
I have. It really opened my eyes to the freedoms we enjoy versus the freedoms they enjoy.
I have family in Shanghai (huge city), Xi'an (pretty big city), BaoJi City (Medium-sized city), and a small villiage nearby. I have travelled to all of these places and stayed wih my relatives. As a native-born American, I was thoroughly impressed with the freedom that they enjoy.
Many Chinese never even come in contact with a Policeman. Judges and government officials (my cousin is a Provincial (read: State) Supreme Court Judge, and her husband is a high-ranking government official, BTW) live like common "folk," and people do and say almost anything they want. My nephews all play Counterstrike on-line against their classmates, and they all surf the internet. You have to understand that Chinese people are just not into Pr0n and such things like we (Americans) are. So, for them, not having access to Pr0n just isn't a big deal.
But hey, don't take my word for it. Go see for yourself.
Oh, and the one baby thing is only enforced in the big cities. Again, don't take my word for it. Most of my family in the smaller areas have several children.
What was her crime? He wanted to mail copies of publicly available news articles to her husband residing in the USA. The articles dealt with the plight of women in Chinese society. She is serving an 8 year prison sentence, starting in 2000.
Is anyone angered by this incident? I was infuriated when I received the documents from AI. Visiting China may be "safe" for foreigners, but should we not express our moral outrage by boycotting China and its products?
When I was there in September, SSHing to my shell account worked just fine. Tunnel through that, and you'll be fine.
If you're going to do human rights work there, that it's probably best to do one illegal thing at a time. So, don't look at porn when your issue is Falun Gong. And likewise, don't look at Falun Gong sites if your issue is porn.
If you're just on vacation, consider spending your time seeing the sites rather than surfing the net. It'll be there when you get home.
Ignore all the idiots on this site who tell you to obey unjust laws.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
We (rightly) put down rebellions within our borders(cf. the Civil War). They are terrorism. It doesn't matter how political they are; actually, being especially political means you are committing treason and not just causing destruction.
The civil war was 150 years ago. Today, when there are protestors, we let them have at it, and mostly just watch until the destruction is over. If the police overstep their roles or break the law they put on trial, fined, or fired.
We execute lots of people. Why is it so important that they use cheap bullets rather than expensive injections?
We execute a relative few. In the whole country somewhere between 200 and 300 people per year. The average stay on death row is between 5 and 10 years. The average death row inmate has had between 3 and 5 lawyers. The average death row inmmate has been in court and in front of a judge at least 6 times. None of these things is true about China. It has nothing to do with the cost of the bullet. It has everything to do with the process. China hems and haws about even disclosing how many people it executes. There is no presumption of innocence. There is no right to appeal. No right to seek a pardon.
You can't joke about killing the President
You can in fact joke about killing the President. You cannot enter into a conspiracy to kill the President (or anyone). You cannot solicit people to kill the the President (or anyone). You cannot ask that another person should kill a person. If you do make statemnets amount about the President and killing him you likely will get investigated by the Secret Service to determine if you have entered into a plot to kill the President. If you haven't then nothing happens. You can say anything about Scientology. You cannot republish copyright protected documents without permission. If you do, you may be sued and/or receive a letter from an attorney
We dropped two nukes on two cities, something nobody else has done, to keep the rest of the WORLD in line; and have waged war since.
No, we dropped two nukes for the explict purpose of defeating Japan. Even after the first they did not surrender. Hence the second. We showed restrainant when others would have shown known. After World War II we had the most powerful military in the history of the world. We had the most power economy in the history of the world. Our economic engine was producing war time goods at a rate that all the nations of the world combined could not match our power. We could have dominated the world, and who would have opposed us? The peasantry of China? The ruins that once were great nations in Europe? The decimated demoralized Soviets? In 1945 we could have rolled over the world, dominating and taking anything we wanted. There were no limits to the power we could project. Europe, Africa, Asia - even China would be fall to their knees in realization of American power. Yet we did not puruse that course. We rebuilt Germany. We brought democracy to Japan. We liberated and left France. We helped our sworn enemies. We established a home land in the middle east for the Jews out of compassion and remorse for a crime we did not commit.
I love America. And I've spent my life loving America. I'll never deny our collective mistakes but I will certainly not equate them to the routine barbary that is found so often and with such foulness across the world. America has its many problems. America is flawed, and growing more so. But it will be a cold day in hell when you can equte America with communist China.
The fact remains that the Bill of Rights - even in its decaying form - offers more protection, more glorious freedom, more liberty than most people of the world dare to aspire to obtain.
Yeah because we all know Republicans are bigots, right?
I don't recall mentioning Democats, Republicans or any other politcal party in my original post. I was pointing out that our country has also had it's problems with civil liberties in the past. Perhaps you have a guilty concious. Some of that White Christian guilt?
How many Republican KKK members have you heard of? I'd dare say little to none
Ummmmm David Duke is Republican and also a grand wizard. The roles have reversed in this country. The Democrats were once the party of racists. The Democrats are now more tolerant of peoples race. This is also reflected in the switch in the deep south from Democrat to Republican. Yep the south is racist. Remember the segregated prom in Georgia last year?
Get your facts straight before calling some one an idiot..... idiot.
Truth, oddly enough, is also in the eye of the beholder.
Machine9dotNet
Business as usual on planet earth.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
You're only telling half the story though. It used to be called the "Solid South" for the Democratic party, until a little something called the Civil Rights Act. Once the Northern Democrats and LBJ got their way and actually started granting rights to blacks living in the South, the Democratic party lost a large percentage of the southern white voters over that single issue. There are still some of the old Democrats hanging around, like Zell Miller, who didn't change party association, even though they no longer hold mainstream Democratic viewpoints, but by and large, the South has been ceded to the Republican party. Commission a poll from Gallup that correlates Party ID with this question: "Do you approve or disapprove of interracial marriage?" You'll have all the answers you need about which party contains the most racists. I'm also curious to hear your theories about why black voters overwhelmingly vote Democratic, since the Republican party is apparently so progressive.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
No, but you can buy a lawyer. Which, from your standpoint, is pretty much the same thing as bribery...let me pay a bunch of money and make this problem go away. If your case in China was too high-profile for the cops to ignore, I'm sure the purchase of the lawyer with the best guanxi would help you to at least escape the country.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Oh, lucky you. Over here, that only works for teddy kennedy.
Seriously, though, bribery only works in the 3ed world and black africa. Trying a bribe in north africa will get your hand cut off. It might work in china if you have enough money for them to be intersted.
Sound like you are one of the rich and privliged classes who can buy your way out of trouble.
I guess you don't care about the poor people who don't have the money to buy their way out of trouble.
Well, from 1984-89, several U.S. Companies and the CDC, with the approval of the U.S. Department of Commerce, sold several chemicals to Iraq, who at the time, was at war with Iran. Here is a short list of goodies we sold them.
Bacillus Anthracis
Clostridium Botulinum
Histoplasma Capsulatam
Brucella Melitensis
Clostridium Perfringens
Clostridium tetani
Escherichia coli
This was confirmed By CDC records, Senate Banking Commision records, and U.N. weapons inspectors.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
Do quite the opposite of a Boycott. Right now the Chinese is caught in a catch-22. They want to maintain their totalirian control over society yet desire more then anything the Almighty Dollar. However, our economy REQUIRES financial freedom. You think those that become millionaires from paupers in China won't demand more and more control over the government? It's Happening but it's happening slowly. I'm personally cautiously optimistic about China. Yet, I woouldn't consider moving anytime soon.
I notice a lot of people are saying to forward all traffic through an ssh tunnel. That's all well and good, and would probably conceal whatever you're doing on the net, but is it legal? I know in some other countries encryption is considered illegal; does anyone know what the legal status of encryption in China is?
> Sometimes you may face inconvinence but don't worry to much you will soon get used to it.
Funny, that sounds like something one might hear on the first day in a prison shower. >:-0
Seriously, I've spent some time in the middle east, and internet access is curtailed there as well. However, it's mostly pr0n & gambling sites that get blocked; authorities there aren't as insecure as they are in China.
S
As you said there is not a one to one mach for any of them.
Look at the posts.
The first one is critical of the reduction of US civil liberties after 9/11. Okay so this is the same as sending in tanks to stop protesters? Plus it is "critical" of government policy! Try that in China.
The next one has this line in it "Ross, a convicted serial murderer who has admitted killing eight women in the 1980s, says he wants to waive his appeals and die". How is this even close to killing someone for protesting? How long has his case been going through the system? How many checks and balances? I want to see the my nation stop capital punishment. If I was Chinese could I say that on a public forum?
Your next link is critical of reductions in personal freedom since 9/11. Notice that it is critical of them plus no of the examples of abuses are running students over with tanks for protesting.
You next one on freedom of speech totally a none issue. A company stopped hosting a website. Not the government but a private company. Get a new hosting company. For all we know they did not pay there bill.
The link on making money on prisoners. This is critical of some local cities for seeing prisons as a source of jobs. You know construction, catering, and staff. Not using prisoners for slave labor. No shade here.
Finally the last link. Again it is critical of US policy. It talks about problems the US is having gathering information in Afghanistan. From you link "The experiences of Shamsulrachman, the villager in Sawai, suggest differences in treatment. He says marines searched his house recently and found nothing. But when they discovered a shell casing outside of a neighbor's house that he says dated from the Soviet era, they told him they were going to arrest him. He says the Marines were civil,"
I do not see any match here.
Your last link... Could you have a page like that in China?
The original post was that China is not as bad as you think and the media over states the problems.
Of course the US is not perfect, no country is. Where are you on the whole safer and free? Your post pretty much proves my point.
Is the US perfect? You do not think so? Lets talk about it. Let's try and improve things. Hey we could try and let others know about the things we feel need changing.
Is China perfect..... Let's just say that it is. The is for the best.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Ah yes, Japan... A bastion of human rights and equality.
Technically Japan is a free democracy. But human rights? Equality? They are given lip service at best.
Don't believe me? Ask the two Kurdish Turks just deported even though the UN had declared them refugees.
Or perhaps the nurse who was denied a promotion because she does not have Japanese citizenship. She was BORN in Japan! She *only* speaks Japanese! Her mother was Japanese, her father Korean, and this is the source of her problem. At the time she was born having a Japanese mother did *not* get you Japanese citizenship. (Having a Japanese father would have though.) So her passport says "Korea", and thus she is denied a promotion. The kicker? This decision was just *upheld* by the Japanese Supreme Court!
Yep, Japan... A bastion of human rights and equality.
Some people are like slinkies--basically useless but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.
Tibet was conquered fair and square by China.
Drawing that sort of analogy opens up the possibility of criticizing the states for continuing to hold on to the south, or the UK and Scotland, or Israel and the entire nation of Israel, et cetera.
Aw, that sucks... 3 minutes late, and you don't get the extra "Funny" point... c'mon Mods... boost a brother up... he's just as funny, just a little, uh, slow. :)
Witness our current shining success in Iraq.
There are very few things you can shove down a person's throat without making them angry. You might gratefully accept chocolate if I offered it to you, but I bet you'd struggle like mad if I tried to shove it down your throat.
The analogy goes farther than you expect.
That's absolutely the opposite of the truth. Specific articles are not blocked (with the exception of the local version of Google News, which just doesn't list them), but the Google Cache is banned. BBC News was still inaccessible as of the last time I was there (July), but most other major English language news sources are available.
To be honest, the Great Firewall is more of a nuisance than a threat. It's really only sites relating to FLG and Taiwan independence that they stop you from getting at - the only time you're likely to run into it is when you have to open a PDF file instead of using Google's 'view as HTML' option.
The Government of Tibet in Exile: http://www.tibet.com/
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Assuming you're on a Linux machine, do PPP over SSH. Plenty of people will say it's slow, but I've been using it very successfully for several months on high speed connections (> 2Mb/s). The only time I've had problems is when the connection goes down, but hey, that's the problem. :)
:)
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
/etc/ppp/options on either the server or the client.
;
/dev/pty$d\n";
/sbin/route delete $localip"; /usr/sbin/pppd passive\"";
/dev/tty$d defaultroute local proxyarp ktune";
I found this script somewhere on the 'net, and made adjustments. It's not perfect, but it works for me, so I have no grand plans for making more changes.
You'll need to have SSH keys set up between where you are, and a server on a 'friendly' network. This will route *ALL* of your traffic, over SSH, through the remote host. Nothing you do will be seen. It'll all be encrypted SSH traffic. I use a different port for SSH, so it's not even recognized as SSH traffic. For all they know, it could be music streaming or something.
--- begin rc.firewall (for the server)
#!/bin/tcsh
# not all of this is necessary. Play with it a bit.
#!/bin/tcsh
# A simple rc.firewall to start NAT.
echo 1 >
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -F INPUT
iptables -F OUTPUT
iptables -F FORWARD
iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o ppp+ -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i ppp+ -o eth0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
--- end rc.firewall
--- begin ppptunnel.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# there should be no
#
$localip="1.2.3.4"; # first ip on net
$localmask="255.255.255.0"; # 16 ips
$remoteip="1.2.3.5"; # other end of link
$ssh="/usr/bin/ssh";
$pppd="/usr/sbin/pppd"
$sshuser="my_vpn_user"; # The remote user, who has SSH keys set up.
$sshhost="1.2.3.4";
foreach $maj ("p".."s") { # adjust this to the ptys you have
foreach $min ("0".."9", "a".."f") {
print "Trying $maj$min\n";
&tryopen("$maj$min");
}
}
die "Couldn't alloc pty\n";
sub tryopen
{
local($d)=@_;
if (open(PTY, "+>/dev/pty$d")) {
print "Opened
$pid=fork;
defined($pid) || die "can't fork";
if ($pid) { #parent
print "Parent...\n";
open(STDIN, "<&PTY") || die "reopen stdin";
open(STDOUT, ">&PTY") || die "reopen stout";
close PTY;
print STDERR "running on tty$d; ssh=$$, pppd=$pid\n";
#system $ssh, "-vt", "-l$sshuser", "vpn", "sudo
#-f -x -t
$c = "$ssh -tx -l$sshuser $sshhost \"sudo
print STDERR "Executing $c\n";
exec "$c";
die "exec $ssh: $!";
} else { #child
print "Child...\n";
close PTY;
sleep 5;
print "Modifying routes\n";
$old_def_route = `route -n | grep ^0.0.0.0 | cut -c 17- | cut -f 1 -d ' '`;
chop ($old_def_route);
$c = "route add -host $sshhost gw $old_def_route";
print "Route: $c\n";
system("$c");
$c = "route del default gw $old_def_route";
print "Route: $c\n";
system("$c");
print "starting pppd\n";
$c = "$pppd
# exec $pppd, "/dev/tty$d", "defaultroute", "local", "debug", \
# "netmask", "$localmask", "$localip:$remoteip";
exec "$c";
die "exec $pppd: $!";
}
}
}
print "Switching default route back to it's original\n";
$c = "route add default gw $old_def_route netmask 0.0.0.0 metric 1";
system("$c");
--- end ppptunnel.pl
If the link comes up, you'll see a ppp0 device on your machine (not the server). Do some traceroutes to verify you
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I call bullshit on your statement about dropping tha tomic bomb on Japan. Japan had already attempted to surrender to Moscow weeks before Hiroshima. The Americans hamstringed that attempt. We dropped the bomb on Japan specifically because we wanted to ensure that the Japanese surrendered to the United States, instead of the Soviets. Don't forget that just months earlier we were learning how Europe was being divided up. We didn't want another East Germany at the helm of one of the most titanic war machines ever built.
the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were one of the greatest massacres in the history of the world, and the United States has to live up to that fact. Although most historians agree that we did it to stop the Soviets, I doubt that popular opinion will ever coincide with this until all the WWII vets are dead and gone.
If you doubt me, read "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, and The Architecture of an American Myth." by Gar Alperovitz. Read a scholarly article on the question here: http://www.progressive.org/zinn0800.htm (admittedly, Zinn is not the best authority to speak of, but his article can stand as the general opinion of US historians)
This book is a scholarly work that is corroborated by scores of historians, not some dimestore reaction book. Before you go spouting off trash about the murder of tens of thousands of civilians, you better know your facts.
It's hard to defend morally, and it's hard to stomache, but forcing people out from the yoke of a tyrant doesn't work - the best you can do is convince them that they want to get out from under that yoke.
Chemical weapons include such nasties as Mustard Gas, VX, and other blood and nerve agents.
Also, I doubt very seriously that Iraq approached us, and said "Hey, we'd like to make some biological weapons so we can really stick it to the Iranians, with whom we are at war. Waddya say?"
The CDC wouldn't have been involved if the request wasn't made under the guise of medical research. If we hadn't provided it, they could have gotten it from any number of other sources.
I'm not saying we never sold them chemical weapons, or the makings thereof... Just that these aren't them.
Not everything is as sinister as you think it is.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
*DISCLAIMER* I am not a historian, but a few things bother me about this post since I tend to study this time frame.
We could have dominated the world, and who would have opposed us?
Quite a few people. I agree the America was most generous and possibly the most moral country that once ever existed (until maybe the 21st century), but...
The peasantry of China?
They opposed 2 million Japanese troops since 1927 with nothing but militias. The Chinese handed us our rears in Korean War
The decimated demoralized Soviets?
Stalin dictated the post war terms directly through Molotov to the Allies. The Allies agreed to every term! The Soviets had almost 10,000,000 troops in the field with more factories and tanks than us to boot and millions of readily available free slave labor (German Pow's, Ukranian Freedom Fighters, and Russian dissidents in gulags... not to mention the Soviet People themselves). The Red Army was inefficient, but it was far from being defeated. They would scoff at the poor quality of US tanks that the Americans sent them as aid and nick named them coffins compared to super IS-2 tanks that could knock out Tiger tanks with ease much less a thinly armored Sherman tank. He mostly lacked a Navy and Atomic bombs. Had he not died in 53, it was speculated he was gearing up for a war with the US.
Once the Soviets had the bomb in 1947, America did not have that option to dominate the world even if they wanted to. That's only two years. Mind you that General MacArthur bemoaned on the state of the military by the Korean War.
Great as America was, it's military might was not really as great then as it was and is since the 1970's as it was tested in the Vietnam war. Of course the prevailing thought at the time was that there was no need for a standing army since the US could defend itself with the Bomb.
Not to say America has great freedoms, but neither was it a lone super power until 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.
However China is slowly catching up...
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
We established a home land in the middle east for the Jews out of compassion and remorse for a crime we did not commit.
Actually, what we did is basically break down the door to the home of some muslims and say "here you go Stein, this is your new home".
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
These are the Americans who voted for Bush, who can't see the problems with the Patriot Act or the war on Iraq,
Bush or Kerry or Clinton or Gore or whoever...it's not the nature of a candidate or party to erode freedoms. It's the nature of government to erode freedoms. It's been this way since the dawn of history.
Whoever we elect may be great for a year or so...but give 'em time. This really isn't a partisan or politicial issue.
IMHO, once we got addicted to the 'free' cash of entitlements, we pretty much ensured that people would be too distracted to care about freedom. Americans these days don't think about free-DOM as much as 'free' prescription medicine, 'free' retirement, 'free' education....etc. Don't believe me? Compare the upcoming brouhaha over social security to the debate over patriot act renewal. See which one people care about more.
You can in fact joke about killing the President
Actually, you can't joke about anything.
For example:
two Brazilian surfers were arrested in Miami's International Airport under terrorist charges. Mizael Cabral, born in Paraíba, and Daniel Correia, from Rio de Janeiro, spent a good amount of time in Uncle Sam's land working hard to save money so that they could start a surf board factory in João Pessoa. They bought as suction pump here that would make their job a lot easier, but something really weird happened in the airport while they were going back to Brazil. According to the American authorities, they were joking about having that suction pump (pump and bomb are the same word in brazilian portuguese). The man from Paraíba supposedly asked the inspector in the airport: "Haven' you found the bomb in the bag yet?" And the one from Rio would've said: "If you open up my bag, it will explode". In cuffs, the two men were taken to Miami's Jail under the charges of "false information about explosives, with malicious intentions, irresponsibility and disregard for the human lives safety". They can be sentenced up to five years in prison and they will have to pay US$ 250 thousand dollars each. They have been in jail for almost a month and the press has no access to them.
They are now back in Brazil, after plead guilty of terrorism! Deported.
There is no presumption of innocence. There is no right to appeal.
You got that right!
I shot the sheriff
By and large they don't see that having a controlling government is a problem, because it makes the right decisions. That's the thought process. She had never seen that image of the student in front of the tank in Tiananmen square. Never. And she was happy they didn't show it in China, because it could reduce the stability of the country.
When you can understand and respect that reasoning without trying to change it, then you are ready to go into that culture.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
> the nations of the world combined could not match our power.
Got a cite for that?
I'm not necessarily disputing anything you're claiming; however, neither is it at all clear that what you've said is actually true. In particular...
> There were no limits to the power we could project.
I think you're underestimating the remaining power of the other industrialized nations at the end of WWII. Even by D-Day, Britain had enough military might remaining to take responsibility for as much of the assault as the USA.
If you look at this link, for example, you'll see that while the USA was well-supplied with equipment, it was severely undermanned for dreams of world conquest. At the end of the war, there were about 1100 divisions available to the countries most involved, of which less than 10% were American. Moreover, this link suggests that the USA didn't enjoy such a dominant position in equipment after all; for example, the USSR was producing more tanks than the US by the end of the war.
Given the numbers and logistics involved, your assertion of the manifest ability of the USA to "roll over" the rest of the world seems...optimistic.
No matter what the topic, it can always be turned into an Iraq bitchfest.
I'm writing this way too late to get modded high enough for anyone to see but maybe someone will see it and it'll help. The irony is that I'm so late in posting as I'm in China and just woke up this morning.
I was here briefly last summer and am now doing a semester abroad. China really is not that a bad of a place to be. It seems most of the replies are very negative or sarcastic about the security situation in China. In all seriousness, living here as a foreigner is not that bad. Sure you have to deal with weird, to the US, government regulations, but I don't feel as though I'm under an iron fist or anything. Just respect the culture and their customs/laws and you will have a great time.
Oh and if you take the time to learn even a bit of the language it can help immensely. I know I've run into many people who were much more cordial when I told them (in Chinese) that I was a student here learning the language.
Everyone has different experiences, especially if you are ABC or even look remotely Chinese. But instead of listening to a bunch of other people talk about it, just take a 2 week trip to China and see for yourself. I think more Americans need to get out and see the realities of the world (although my cynicism says that when the they do the average Americans will do something stupid, get into trouble, and then blame it not on themselves but on the country they are in)
Scotland chose to join the union so that analogy doesn't really hold up. (Treaty of Northhampton 1329) Also we had a referendum on independance in 1979 and the majority voted against it. (33% for) If the Scots are still pissed about Wallace getting killed and want independence, they should get it. Probably shouldn't use Mel Gibson films as a source for historical reference. :->
I've lived there and seen it for myself.
/. :-) )
I lived for 4 months in Baoji and then for 2.5 years in Shanghai. My girlfriend lived for 2 years in Baoji working in University and Middle Schools and for 6 months in Beijing. So, I've seen and experienced probably more than you.
Living in China made me realize how much freedom we have in the west. Yes, many people speak quite openly about what they dislike. As do most people still believe Mao was the greatest person on earth (put some "70% good, 30% bad" in it to water it a bit down). But you realize how much freedom is missing when people criticize the government and keep looking over their shoulders if no strangers are listening. Can you imagine bashing Bush in Central Park in New York or bashing Blair in London and worrying that someone might hear it and get you into trouble? Privately and with foreigners they don't risk too much by being honest.
The worst thing about China in my experience is the utterly useless and terrible media (because of the extreme censorship) and the non-existing legal system. So, theoretically many people have rights. But when a street with its buildings gets completely destroyed outside the university (as happened in Baoji) to make room for a wider road, then theoretically all the shop owners and restaurant owners get compensated for losing their main source of income. But they don't and they don't even think about going to court because it's useless.
It's true about the police, but only because the police actually has little rights. The communist party is the ruler and they take care of things. But aside from that Chinese are in most cases very decent people (much more than in the west) because of peer pressure to not lose face for the family and other reasons.
Go there for a longer period of time and you'll see what the real deal is. Most people only go for some weeks or months and haven't even scratched the surface. The Chinese people are very good at making you believe things are great and only later you find out that things actually aren't great.
(Not often that I see the precious chicken (Baoji) mentioned on
Bzzt, wrong. Google search next time, you won't look so dumb in public.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
It's not 'American, born-Chinese', IT IS American-Born Chinese.
This term refers to someone who's family line comes from the region of the planet referred to as China, but is unfamiliar with the ways and customs of the Chinese culture and government.
This is a problem because they will not afford you the same courtesy they would an obviously "white" American due to his explainable ignorance of their ways and customs. An ABC gets no slack in China. They are expected to be aware of the way things are done, and if anything are treated worse due to their ignorance of what could be thought of as "their own culture".
Obviously this is a close minded viewpoint, but it does happen to ABC who visit China.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
No, it's not OK now. The world is a patchwork of territories, with every one of the major players having claims all over. When the western world became "civilized" (debatable), the territories were left as-is. The Brits have the Falkland Islands, the US has Pear Harbour and Guantanamo Bay (another wierd one) and so on.
Democracy in it's current incarnation is a farce. Do you really believe that if the residents of a country wanted independance they'd get it? Bear in mind I'm sitting in Scotland here, where a large percentage of the population wants it, but there ain't gonna be a vote on it. Over the water from me, Northern Ireland has been contested over by terrorist groups (funded from the US ironically) for decades, and it's not worked for them. On the other hand, we have Yugoslavia, where a bloody civil war got nations their independance.
The only peacefull change that springs to mind was the UK's hand-over to China recently. The whole independance giving (which China ain't!) thing isn't all that popular.
Tibet has been a part of China for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It's status only came into question in the last fifty, thanks to the involvement of the CIA, during the cold war. Remember that? Lot's other places were contested over.
The fact is that I don't have a clue about whether the Tibetans want independance. But I'm not going to blindly believe the usual anti-communist crap that the US has been spilling for years.
There are some serious misunderstandings about China being voiced here -- even by people who have gone there. I can understand this. I spent seven years in China and saw many misunderstandings both by people who had just gotten there and by people who had lived there but never bothered to really immerse themselves in it.
China is a wonderful place. The people are nice. The culture is respect-worthy. The landscape is beautiful. The history is intoxicating.
Is there corruption, especially in the really rural areas? Yes. But if you understand the culture and the guanxi (relationships) system then you will have few problems. They ask for 15 RMB for something that is supposed to be free? Give it. Who cares? It's two bucks. Though usually, if you speak some chinese, you can demonstrate that you are a friend of the country and of its people and get around with no hassles.
As for the government's rejection of human rights -- things are relative. I don't approve of everything that the Chinese government does, but I also appreciate that there is an amount of ethnorelativism that needs to be engaged consciously. For instance, the UN definition of human rights includes a provision that allows everyone to live at a certain basic level -- something we know as welfare. But Americans wouldn't submit to that being a human right. Much of the world's declaration of human rights is not considered valid in the developing world because people see them as western-defined examples of human _needs_ -- something everyone accepts. (Read Azar. Human needs fit into three groups -- security (food, protection, water, etc), acceptance (for whatever group you identify with) and access to/participation in the institutions that allocate resources (markets or governments.)
As for Internet access -- it is easy to come by. It isn't the fastest stuff in the world (esp. outside of the big cities) but the blocks are nominal. You can get around them as well. Some methods are mentioned in this thread.
You shouldn't worry about having your freedoms repressed. Just be sensitive. Just like you wouldn't walk around Saudi Arabia (as a woman) wearing a bikini top screaming "you should be allowed to do this too!" you don't walk around China doing things that aren't culturally acceptable. It is disrespectful. And in China respect means a lot.
So I hope you do it. The best seven years of my life (so far) were those spent in China. It was a mind-opening experience. If you have any questions you can email me. (Just make sure that you write a good subject line so I don't click "junk.") Take care! Oh, and don't listen to anyone who says China sucks or is oppressive. The experience of individuals can be awful anywhere. But statistically speaking the vast majority of Chinese and of foreigners live happily.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
"Freedom is not an incompatable world view."
Freedom? Freedom from? Freedom to? None of these concepts are core to Chinese philosophy. You are not born free according to traditional Eastern philosophy; you are born into a complex web of social interaction and obligations.
"Democracy is not an incompatable world view."
Yeah it is.
Democracy is completely alien to the Chinese worldview; it only came through Canton/HK after the Western powers invaded in the 18th/19th centuries. Chinese philosophy, especially Confucius and Mencius, advocated human existence as simply a set of key relationships. There's no such thing as a formal developement of individualism in China; traditional Chinese philosophy views the basic unit of society as the family, not the person. Your obligations to society define your role; try reading up on it sometime. Collective good >> individual; has been so for the past 3000 years in China. Communism is not at all incompatible with Chinese tradition.
"Human rights are not an incompatable world view."
The concept of inalienable human rights is totally foreign to China. You are not born with rights in traditional Chinese society; you are born with obligations you parents, your family, and your (historically) Emporer.
"Equality under the law is not an incompatable world view."
This one is interesting. Chinese history is full of specific examples of law and philosophy that espouse DIFFERENT punishments for DIFFERENT classes of people; this has been the case since the existence of the Tang Code - the predominant legal system in ALL of ASIA. Japan's law system up until the Meiji era was based on this system. This system specfiically CODIFIED different punishments depending on if you were related to the Emperor, whether you were an official, or had money and could pay to have your punishments reduced.
This was not arbitrary and evil; it was based on specific philosophy from Confucious. the Confucian school of thought held that Junzi, or those educated elite, should not be held to the same laws as the peasants; moral law should guide them and terrestrial law should be limited to application to peasants.
Your view is purely that from a Western society; freedom, by it's very nature, cannot be forced down a society's throat - witness Iraq. You must have a tradition of open thought and philosophy to set the stage for democracy to even start. It's foolish to think you can export your 3 branches of government to China along with the Bill of Rights (or what's left of it after Patriot Act I) and expect everyone in the world to be jolly. China WILL become a democratic society, but expecting overnight change from a country with 4000+ years of contrary philosophy and traditions is naiive.
I have lived in Shanghai for 4 years (U.S. born, white male). Life in Shanghai is very easy. Its simply a very large city...other than that, there is nothing that a normal U.S. citizen would find "oppressive". If you are a person who is compelled to stand on street corners in the U.S. and stir up a riot over government policies, then neither the U.S. nor China are for you at the moment. But if you are a normal person who isn't interested in stirring a revolution, China is simply not an oppressive place. You can have small group and one-on-one conversations about anything you want (even politically sensitive issues). You can access almost any content you may desire over the net (some porn sites have been blocked...some chinese political content (in Madarin, so you couldn't read it anyway) has been blocked)...but google works as you would expect and most any business which requires internet access can be conducted fairly easily. Sure, doing things like extending your visa requires going to a gov building and waiting in line, but how often do you do this? Its not much different than going to a U.S. gov office. Other services are mostly private/free-enterprise and are very easily accessed; your largest barrier is language. As with almost any travel around the world, an open mind and a friendly smile will do lots to improve your experience. In terms of the Internet...it is very slow to access non-China servers. This is caused by two major issues: 1 - the "Great Firewall" and 2 - enormous amounts of local traffic (lots of it due to infected PCs). Best guess is that its item 2 that is the biggest problem with traffic, since the content filter isn't real-time (or so it would appear). MS's recent announcement to not continue to security patch unlicensed copies of Windows will no doubt add to this problem. As to other places besides Shanghai, well this is the top city China for westerners to do business so its the easiest...for anywhere else you can scale down your expectations on services from here; but freedom of expression, movement, etc...are all pretty smooth so long as your not here to stir up trouble. Good luck to you...
No, it's not OK now. The world is a patchwork of territories, with every one of the major players having claims all over. When the western world became "civilized" (debatable), the territories were left as-is. The Brits have the Falkland Islands, the US has Pear Harbour and Guantanamo Bay (another wierd one) and so on.
I'm not really worried as much about military bases as I am about whole countries of people being forced to live under a government they don't support. No one actually lives in Guantanamo Bay except for some prisoners. Pearl Harbor is part of Hawaii, which IIRC voted to join the USA.
Democracy in it's current incarnation is a farce. Do you really believe that if the residents of a country wanted independance they'd get it?
I'm not saying it's guaranteed, but it's a lot easier in a democracy than other regimes. My whole argument was that if they want independence, they should be granted it; anyone who acts otherwise is immoral, as the USA and Turkey are doing with regards to the Kurds.
Bear in mind I'm sitting in Scotland here, where a large percentage of the population wants it, but there ain't gonna be a vote on it.
Excuse me? I'm just an ignorant American, but another poster just replied to this same message saying Scotland willingly joined the union, and that they even had a referendum in the 1970's for independence, and it failed, getting only 33% approval. While I'm all for independence for regions that want it, that doesn't apply if it's just a minority.
On the other hand, we have Yugoslavia, where a bloody civil war got nations their independance.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the usual way to achieve independence. It shouldn't be that way, and countries that have fought for independence should better appreciate what they have, and support other peoples who want the same thing, instead of oppressing them.
Tibet has been a part of China for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Last time I checked, Tibet only became part of China after the communists took over in 1949. Before that, they were self-governing. Mexico is part of North America geographically, but they were never ruled by the USA.
The fact is that I don't have a clue about whether the Tibetans want independance. But I'm not going to blindly believe the usual anti-communist crap that the US has been spilling for years.
I don't think anyone knows what modern-day Tibetans want, but I don't think Tibetans in 1949 wanted to be part of China, or else China would not have had to take the country by force. That's like thinking the woman really wants it when she's screaming "no! stop!".
The Government said it would charter a jet to fly Mr Habib back from Cuba. He will be free to go home.
You miss that part?
Haida Manga
Tibet has been a part of China for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It's status only came into question in the last fifty, thanks to the involvement of the CIA, during the cold war.
Tibet has been part of China before, it is true -- but not for thousands of years, and primarily (until recently) when China has been ruled by a foreign dynasty (the yuan and qing dynasties respectively). But it has been independent many times for longer (before Buddhism came to rule in Tibet they were considered a fierce enemy). So you could say its status has always been in question.
Not sure where the CIA comes into it. I don't doubt that they would have wanted contention in the area - but I believe the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community in Nepal were contesting Chinese control after they invaded in 1959 quite outside of the CIA's involvement.
drain