China Tightens Rules For Educational BBSs

An anonymous reader writes "China is tightening control over online BBS run by colleges and universities. Educational institutions in China have received direct orders from the Chinese Ministry of Education requiring their BBSs to take actions including access limitation and registering users by their real identities, as well as strict content censorship. The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed."

Comments

This just in:

[Neil Blender]

Oppressive country oppresses.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

it's even funnier that it says "your rights online" and I don't even study in china! ha suckers!!!!1!!!

Re:This just in:

[alecks]

In other news, China continues being China....

Re:This just in:

[ackthpt]

Oppressive country oppresses.

But the thing that gets me, when I talk to some people from the PRC, is how strongly many believe it isn't oppressive, it's good for the whole of the country and then they have the temerity to point out all the crap the Bush family, the CIA and the State Dept have done over the years.

Each side of the argument is so familiar with the transgressions of the other and willing to turn a blind eye to their own.

Whatchagonnado?

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

What really gets me is that in this climate of "The US will fall and get what's coming to it!" rhetoric, some people seem to be cheering on China's rise to superpower status. (some people..not all)

What will life be like with China as a superpower? Or how about a hyperpower? The Anglo axis of US/UK/Australia is certainly not perfect, but when weighed against China....seems to be pretty good.

Re:This just in:

[Drooling Iguana]

The difference is that China's currently bad, but slowly getting better, while the USA is currently good (at least relative to China) but getting worse.

Personally, I'm just glad I don't live in either country.

Re:This just in:

[gophergod]

Yeah realy! What elese dwould you expect.... Well there will be tomarrows dup story. Hell knowing Slsshdot we may not even have to wait that long.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'm glad you don't live here too...HA!

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatchagonnado?

Resist.

Re:This just in:

[Poppler]

The Anglo axis of US/UK/Australia is certainly not perfect, but when weighed against China....seems to be pretty good.

Oceanea has always been at war with Eastasia.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, good thing, not everyone can be blowing Chinese government officials - that's your job, right?

Re:This just in:

[gl4ss]

well, if you really got the people by the balls. like REALLY have them by the balls you can tell pretty much anything you want as the truth, and people will believe you! you can tell them any crazy crap like the great leap. and what's best, you can afterwards tell that it wasn't your fault that there wasn't enough food.

that's what CONTROL is.

if gwb had real control you wouldn't see him monkeying around, you'd only hear about the new scientific breakthrough that he single handedly made.

Re:This just in:

[cryptochrome]

The difference is that China's currently bad, but slowly getting better, while the USA is currently good (at least relative to China) but getting worse.

True... but seriously, the US and China aren't anywhere near being in the same league oppression wise. That some citizens of an undeniably oppressive state (cultural revolution anyone?) believe otherwise isn't exactly convincing.

Of course, if you want real answers you should ask recent immigrants and their kids from China about it. I'd say the same about western immigrants to china, but aside from some businessmen I doubt there are many.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.

And if you've forgotten Abu Ghraib already, keep in mind that not all countries oppress their own people. Some do it in the comfort of foreign nations.

Re:This just in:

[Acius]

That sounds about right. Most people from most oppressive countries live pretty well most of the time. If it were not so, the governments wouldn't last very long. Honestly, even after these countries are "liberated," you're going to get a lot of whining from people about the good old days.

A great example of this is South Africa. My family is from South Africa, and I still have many relatives there. If you'd told us twenty years ago that there were hit-squads, constant uprisings, military actions against blacks, and frequent prison torture, we would have had a tough time believing you. Even people who had just visited South Africa from abroad would have probably contradicted you. It seemed like a pretty nice place! Of course, in retrospect, all these things turned out to be true, but we didn't hear about it. We just went to work and went to school and never really crossed any of the invisible lines we didn't know were there.

Similarly, I can happily recommend that you go visit China sometime. It's a pretty nice place, most of the time, and you could probably even live there quite comfortably. Quite a few of my friends have been there and they enjoyed the trip. You'll have to look really hard for even the slightest signs of your being oppressed.

But that doesn't mean that everything's OK.

Re:This just in:

[sfjoe]

rue... but seriously, the US and China aren't anywhere near being in the same league oppression wise.

Undeniably true. However, taking China as a cautionary tale and tracking the direction "oppresiveness" in the USA is taking, no one can seriously claim that the USA is getting better. Except, of course, the radical right.

Re:This just in:

[ePhil_One]

And if you've forgotten Abu Ghraib already, keep in mind that not all countries oppress their own people.

Brilliant! Except the Iraq prisoners there weren't America's own people.

Idiots like you keep Rush and his Cohorts in business.

Re:This just in:

[Rei]

you should ask recent immigrants and their kids from China

Just like we asked Iraqi expats about WMDs? Just like we asked Cuban immigrants how strongly Cuba would resist if we invaded (Bay of Pigs)? Etc? Depending on the reasons for them leaving their parent country, expats can be among the most biased parties in anywhere.

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

This didn't start with Communism. Chinese civilization has a long history of pursuing social order. The intensity with which Western countries tend to defend and rationalize individual liberties would confuse many Chinese from many historical epochs. To them, an authoritarian regime which makes these sorts of dictates is the norm. The Communists are simply the latest in a long line of rulers to do this.

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

To compare the abuse of a few people, most of which aren't even citizens, to that of the oppressive nature of the Chinese government is simply absurd. I'm not defending US actions, but is hyperbole to the point of flagrant dishonesty to compare the two. The very thing typed up above could very well, in China, lead to the maintainers of this website getting into at least some trouble. Ponder that.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the fucking worst insult ever. You fail.

Re:This just in:

[Drooling Iguana]

Camp X-Ray would be a better example for that sort of thing. As far as I know, the Abu Gharib prisoners aren't American citizens.

Re:This just in:

[micsmith]

This kind of oppression is nothing compared to the persecution of good people that's going on there: http://clearwisdom.net/emh/special_column/death_ca ses/death_list.html But what is Falun Gong? Click here(video) or here(website)

Re:This just in:

[NeuroManson]

As the ol' mentality goes, my country, right or wrong.

Re:This just in:

[Malor]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable [inalienable] Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

ALL men. (and women, too, we've grown up a bit.) Not people who happen to have been born within the borders of the United States. ALL people.

What part of "all" do we fail to grasp, I wonder?

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

I'm not defending US acts. But to compare the small number of people being held and (allegedly) abused by American forces to the PRC's treatment of its citizens is simply ludicrous. It's the sort of out and out exaggeration which doubtless makes you a real hero in some circles, but in the real world, it's just crapped-out hyperbole that bears no resemblance to reality.

The lack of freedoms experienced by over a billion people compared to the few hundreds of detainees. Oh yeah, that's equal. Those crimes are totally comparable.

Re:This just in:

[Qzukk]

The sad part is that over 200 years ago, thousands of people died to create a country here where they hoped to live without the government keeping them from speaking their mind or arresting them and holding them indefinitely.

And 4 years ago thousands of people died to make it a place where citizens can be held indefinitely without a trial. Where "suspicion of terrorism" (without any proof) is enough to have searches of your house without notifying you. Where the books you check out from your library can be used against you.

"most of which aren't even citizens"... do you think the non-citizens being held somehow cancel out the citizens?

Re:This just in:

[humaniverse]

Which country you're talking about? US or China? See, I'm so scared to say anything against US government in US since FBI might come to me any time. You know, there are some well known opinions everybody knows on this Earth except Americans. Guess what that is? If you can't, read more news from other countries' media!

Re:This just in:

[Citizen of Earth]

Oppressive country oppresses.

Yeah, but what kind of wussy Fascists are they if they aren't going to hang the dissenters?! "I like my [Fascists] - evil. You know, straight-up, black-hat, Tied-to-the-train-tracks, soon-my-electro-ray-will-destroy-metropolis bad."

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots like you keep Rush and his Cohorts in business.

Idiots like you keep Michael Moore and his Cohorts in business.

Re:This just in:

[ikkonoishi]

Actually men in that case was refering to women as well. It was refering to the race of man.

Re:This just in:

[ikkonoishi]

Frankly I would say that they are comparable. The photos give proof beyond allegations that the events happened. Which is why I am glad that the people who orchastrated those events have been punished.

Re:This just in:

[Malor]

You don't really get it, do you? Just because other people are worse doesn't make us good. We are TORTURING people. The United States of America, Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, is TORTURING people. By policy. With the full knowledge of the government AND THE CITIZENRY.

What China does is *immaterial*. What Hitler did is immaterial. What Pol Pot did is immaterial. The United States is doing these things NOW. That is ALL that matters. Any noise to the contrary is just to try to distract you.

And, from a practical standpoint, the Chinese that you (rightly) detest can point to the fact that we're invading other countries and torturing anyone we choose. At least the Chinese torturers mostly stay home.

We can't preach from the moral high ground if we're not ON the moral high ground. How can we expect other countries to live up to ethical rules that we're willing to ignore whenever we find them inconvenient?

Because of Bush's actions, we have lost most of our ability to influence behavior in the world. The terrorists didn't just win, they hit the f*cking jackpot.

Re:This just in:

[iminplaya]

So...It's all about the numbers then? It's not ok to mess with 98% of the populace, but 2% is ok? What IS the magic number? 51%? 20%?

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

I'm not even claiming the US has a moral highground. The two situations are not comparable in circumstance nor in numbers. Both are abusive, yes. But saying the two are some how comparable is like saying stealing a lollypop from a candy store and pulling of a ten million dollar bank heist are quantitively similar acts. It's just hyperbole. Inexact language leads to inexact thinking, and this is an awfully good example of that.

Re:This just in:

[iminplaya]

If YOU are the one being detained, then yes, they are indeed equal. Why this fascination with big numbers exists, I'll never understand. At what point will you become concerned?

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

And the very fact that these photos saw the light of day in the US demonstrates the vast differences between the political, social and legal structures of the two countries. They aren't comparable.

Re:This just in:

[hey!]

Well, ruthlessly efficient government had it all over the most common ancient alternative in the pre-enlightenment world: ruthlessly inefficient government. Take the Romans; they had a certain flair for flamboyant and outré acts of cruelty, but they were too efficient to apply them indiscriminately. Pretty much if you didn't do anything that had the potential to affect tax revenues, it was your own business.

All in all Roman despotism -- then Muslim despotism after that, were vastly prefrable to the native varieties.

China was never perfect, but it was far better than average over many centuries in the efficiency of its administration.

The thing that makes a despotism liveable is knowing what the rules are. It's like having a map of a minefield. Once knowing where the mines becomes second nature, you don't even have to think about it. The modern idea of democracy took hold in European civilization during the chaos that follows social innovation and religious war. Which makes me think the Chinese system is not long to last. They are trying to foster economic growth, but the social changes that will cause is certain to destroy the sense of stability which is their reason to exist.

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

It isn't just in the numbers. In the US, these pictures got broadcast over the Internet, major newspapers and virtually every domestic TV station. It's more than numbers, it's the underlying cultures, their histories, their priorities and their attitudes towards authority. In short, the situations do not spring from similar sources, and on top of that, the numbers are so staggeringly different (tens and hundreds versus millions) that it's hard to see how anyone could justify the comparisons at all.

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

Because it isn't just numbers. As I said in another post, the cultural and political background for the two countries is so different that the numbers are simply the most obvious incomparable point. They are not the same situation. Both are bad, but China is millions of times worse. What's more, if Americans are so thoroughly disenchanted (which many of them don't seem to be), they have the power to elect anyone who can get on the ballot.

Re:This just in:

[iminplaya]

...it's the underlying cultures, their histories, their priorities and their attitudes towards authority.

Those things are relevent. It's also another reason we shouldn't complain so much about China or other coutries that are different from ours. I'm not impressed with the numbers thing If I'm one of those numbers being oppressed. It just doesn't make any difference if 1 person or a billion people are in the same situation as me. Oppression is oppression, whether you do it to 100 or 100 million. Doing it to everybody doesn't make you any worse of an animal. You're still an animal.

Re:This just in:

[iminplaya]

What's more, if Americans are so thoroughly disenchanted (which many of them don't seem to be), they have the power to elect anyone who can get on the ballot.

And if one billion are so thoroughly disenchanted, they have the power to actually unite and rise up. I think they out number the military by a small margin. It's been that way over there for over 50 years now. Hell, 60 years into our history, we were in the midst of a civil war. I still don't know if the "good" guys won. Only because I don't know the real causes. If so many people felt that badly about their situation, I think they would have attempted something by now. Yeah, they had Tianamin(sp) Square, and we had our Kent State and a couple of others. Until I actually liver there with average Chinese, I can't make any judgements on their system. I'll bet that it not much different from a place like Guatemala or Honduras. Lots of oppression going on there also, and to me it appears every bit as evil as whatever we accuse the Chinese of.

Re:This just in:

[cryptochrome]

My line of reasoning is that Chinese immigrants in America/TheWest know far more about how America/TheWest actually is than those who have never lived here. Those who have lived under both systems are most qualified experience-wise to have an opinion regarding relative levels of oppression, among other things.

Granted some who came here were probably trying to escape the chinese gov't in the first place and would therefore be biased, but most Chinese immigrants I've met are either here for an education or looking for economic opportunity/following relatives.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that Orwell wrote 1984 as a critisism of the Soviet Totalitarian system, it is indeed appropriate to link it to the current Chinese one. Good show!

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

The West has, since the Protestant Reformation in particular, had something of a tradition of cycles of protest, revolution and reform. This is our cultural heritage (or baggage, depending on your point of view).

China's experience is very different, and, historically, revolutionary change has been viewed with fear. A billion people may not like what their government does, but the culture of free expression has never really existed, and attempts in the 19th and early 20th century to transplant it have had mixed success (just as transporting Marxism, which had to be heavily modified, hasn't been what the Soviets had hoped it would be).

I don't know why some people think I am advocating American activities of late, or at least approving of them. I am not. I think that what Bush and Co. have done is a violation of the very basic principles of liberty and equality before the law. I think they are countrproductive and allow some very bad people to say "Well, we can blow up people with carbombs because American soldiers like to humiliate and detain people." In other words, it cheapens the message that the US seeks liberty and justice in other parts of the world. But it isn't comparable to the massive abuses of many people and groups in China. The cultural backdrops are different, the justifications of the US government and the PRC bear only the slightest resemblances.

Re:This just in:

[iminplaya]

Which is why I am glad that the people who orchastrated those events have been punished.

You mean to tell me that they locked up Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz??

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

But oppressing a hundred people, as bad as it is, isn't quantitively the same. The US still has a healthy domestic opposition (and no, I don't mean just the Democrats, who are what I consider a pretty unhealthy opposition). These people still can find air time, even if jackasses like Bill O'reilly think patriotism means being a monstrous prick to anyone who disagrees with his myopic and socially retarded worldview, don't like it. Newspapers can still print stories of outrageous treatment of people of Middle Eastern origins. There simply isn't the culture of repression that exists in China.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you guys don't know the context of this "banned thing".

Smth (smth.org) has ten years history .It is the most famous BBS on Cernet .It's been ten years , people chat there, make frieds there.Even find their financee here.For me , I have 8 years histry with this site .One day, all of the sudden ,you were told you can't visit that site any more.how do you think?

Of course ,unoiversities have the right to decide on what kind of people can acess their property(servers).But in fact, the intellectural content collected over years should not just simpely been robed in this way.And also the bondings amongst members and this community could not be cut off without any respect like this.BBS culture already become a part of our life.It's like lifestyle you couldn't change it immediately.

some students and net-users already voluntarly grouped together mourning for the death of smth. also, after smth was banned by ip-filter , more than 5 the other bbss were closed for some reasons (offical statement was due to system maintenance)

You can see backgroup introduction here (http://www.may26.net/001602.html)with photos (Chinese site you can translate it into english or whateven languages by google tools)

also see:
http://www.donews.net/maomy/archive/2005/03/ 19/305 840.aspx
pictures
http://www.donews.net/zdhmp3/a rchive/2005/03/18/30 5562.aspx

Re:This just in:

[10am-bedtime]

your words demonstrate a portion of the culture dealing w/ self-repression.

what you repress is willingness to drop the quantitative when discussing the qualitative.

self-repression is common everywhere, so you are not alone.

Re:This just in:

[iminplaya]

I don't know why some people think I am advocating American activities of late...

I'm not one of those people. I'm not comparing the Americans with the Chinese. There is no comparison, except that we're all human. I won't condemn the Chinese any more than any other country's oppression just because of the size of their population.

In other words, it cheapens the message that the US seeks liberty and justice in other parts of the world.

I hope you don't believe that that nonsense. If that were true they wouldn't have let Walmart move their workforce to China. They would treat China(and various others) the same way they treat Cuba.

Re:This just in:

[MightyMartian]

I've never been terribly impressed by word candy, and the example that you typed out isn't even the best I've seen.

Re:This just in:

[iminplaya]

But oppressing a hundred people, as bad as it is, isn't quantitively the same.

I'm afraid I'll have to echo the previous response by another poster. I'm not as concerned about the "quantity" as much as I am about the "quality" of the abuse. If repression is such a major part of their culture, who am I to condemn it? They might feel the same way about our music.(After hearing Britney countless times, it's possible that they might be right.)

Re:This just in:

[Zorilla]

And if you've forgotten Abu Ghraib already, keep in mind that not all countries oppress their own people.

Brilliant! Except the Iraq prisoners there weren't America's own people.

Isn't that exactly what the first guy said: NOT their own people?

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

[i]Just like we asked Iraqi expats about WMDs? Just like we asked Cuban immigrants how strongly Cuba would resist if we invaded (Bay of Pigs)? Etc? Depending on the reasons for them leaving their parent country, expats can be among the most biased parties in anywhere.[/i]

This is the best post on this topic I have seen.. it should've been rewarded max points.

Re:This just in:

[cryptochrome]

They are trying to foster economic growth, but the social changes that will cause is certain to destroy the sense of stability which is their reason to exist.

Too true. There's a lot of justified fear and worry over letting an autocracy like China become a superpower. But the path China is taking is economic, and that comes with certain conditions. The WHOLE REASON China is doing so well economically now is because they have a key resource the developed countries don't have - a seemingly endless supply of dirt-cheap labor, including semi-skilled labor. But as cash flows into China two things will happen: 1) that labor will turn middle-class, inflation will set in, and it won't be so cheap anymore. Also it will start having opinions and expecting more out of life. 2) The have-nots will get very unhappy - we're seeing that already. Never mind 3) other, poorer countries will imitate and out-China China and 4) Corruption will sap prosperity and power.

I figure the powers-that-be are keen on this, and are looking at options for maintaining their power by other means, such as external warfare to distract the populace or de-privitization of industry, once the infrastructure has been built.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's absurd to compare USA and China.
China has a long standing rich civilization and culture, while yankees do not. The little they had on their soil, they exterminated in egocentrism.
I hope we can put away our baggy pants and burgers, and replace them with some chinese culture and life style. It can only be an improvement.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, today we call those people religious fundamentalists. You wanted to live like animals.. animals don't have govenment control either, to uphold laws, to enforce social duties and public services financed by taxes. You have wealth, and poverty like we have never seen in here, and of course crime that is related to it, generations stuck in ghettos. Civilization requires rules of morals and duties enforced. It's those rules that makes civilization, not self centered freedoms that hurt the interests of other citizens.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

let me add.. I agree with your latter half of your post.. I just don't think you can look back 200 years in pride.. the native americans had nothing to do with your freedom.. you destroyed them for your own freedoms.. and that's still true today.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

This has always been self proclaimed.
I must've missed the existential debate to educate people the purpose of life beyond doing what feels good.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I expect to be denied access and be banned for good next time I try to visit my girl friend, merely for holding an opinion they don't like.
Or worse, I get locked up in abu graib, because they feel I'm a threat to national security.. just because they say so.. no proof necessary.
Unlike the rest there, I will however enjoy the naked strippers they'll send in to try and break me from my religion.. that alone is enough reason for me to pretend to have one. ;-)

Re:This just in:

[Elranzer]

This just in:

Slashdot users who bash the US get modded troll but Bush-supporting mods whose only dream is a future Senate with a 100% republican ratio.

Slashdot users who bash China get modded troll by hippie Sinophile mods who think CHina or India will be the future superpower and vote Nader.

Slashdot users who bash both the US and China in same post (and hint that they live in some better "paradise" such as Canada, Europe or Australia") get modded insightful by mods thinking it shows both views of the argument.

Re:This just in:

[Elranzer]

In other news... hippie Sinophile bashes the US under Anonymous Coward moniker.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is USA doing it now.. but the US has supported most of these dictators and brought them in power or kept them in power and provided weapons to help them supress their people.. because it was in the best economic and millitary interest of the US. Pol Pot, Pinochet, Taliban, corrupt saudi government being trained and armed by the US to supress its people (Carlyle group, Vinnell Corporation):

My sources for anti-US propaganda, by americans, for americans.. so it must be good. ;-)

However, I believe criticism is always a good thing. It forces justification and accountability.

http://207.44.245.159/article3374.htm
http://ww w.zmag.org/roguenation.htm
http://www.clw.org/con trol/bushunilateral.html
http://globalresearch.ca /articles/CHO407B.html
http://www.globalissues.or g/TradeRelated/FreeTrade /Criticisms.asp
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id =92662&page=1
http://www.informit.com/articles/ar ticle.asp?p=336 867&rl=1
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.co m/History% 20of%20American%20Imperialism

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

The US seeks only "making the world safe for profit, using the clever rules of freedom and democracy". A guy from Seattle ones spoke those words, and it hit the spot.

It's been a cheap and self-serving message from the start by the people in power, and the sheepish population who buys this as genuine good intentions are as culturally biased as the days that the white man brought civilization upon the savages they called the natives.

It is this very same arrogance, the superficial ignorance, that makes the US think they are doing the world a service when they impose their philosophies and life styles upon them.

You put most dictators in place when it suited you, now you use them to excuse wars and lure people into self indulging individualism. Doing what feels good, and having opinions based on feelings, exploited by populists, isn't the same as doing what is good, which requires discipline and a rich culture and history to assist in finding meaning and purpose, other than self indulgence. I love the richness of its culture, the respectful social interaction, the discipline, the food.. It's good far outweigh the bad for me. I can't wait to get some chinese influence here. It'll be for sure enriching rather than destructive and shallow like US culture has been to our local culture.

P.S. Cuba: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662&page=1

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHA

Someone's to stupid to know what the Constitution is and what the Declaration of Independence is...

AHAHAHAHA
f00lz!!!!!11111!!

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to tell you this, but the US (and other governments) have been doing this kind of nasty, unethical/immoral thing at least since World War 2. Can't blame it on Bush. Previous administrations, such as those of the beloved Democratic presidents Kennedy and Johnson, were doing the same kinds of things, for the same reasons, to people outside the US a long while ago ... the only difference is that Bush's people weren't smart enough to cover it up.

Re:This just in:

[TodPunk]

Right along those lines, one man's "opression" is another man's "civilization." Just because the censorship or what have you of another country isn't something you agree with doesn't make it the world's largest concentration camp. They're a different culture, and we should respect the wishes of the country as a whole. If they're happy (and most of them are) it's not our place to judge based on our own contrived opinions of civilized government.

Re:This just in:

[Orgazmus]

I really hope you also see how it works as critisism of the US system.
War outside, blind eye inside

Re:This just in:

[Spectra72]

In a story about China, I'd say China's actions are that all that matters. The fact that you choose to go cuckoo over the US in every story is your own problem.

btw, screw the moral high ground. No one has ever had it in the history of man, no one ever will. Whose morality? What set of morals? Impossible questions to answer. The rest of the world laughs when the US even attempts to talk about freedom, or liberal democratic ideals....do they believe in the moral high ground? Does anyone think the US ever had the moral high ground? Do you HONESTLY believe that any other sovereign nation ever did anything because they thought the US had the moral high ground? Is that how you think nation-states behave? That's a very naive point of view. Did Lincoln have the moral high ground when he suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War? Did Roosevelt have the moral high ground when he, Churchill and Stalin decided the fate of millions in the closing days of WWII? Did Eisenhower, Truman and Kennedy have the moral high ground as they embroiled the US in Vietnam? Johnson? Nixon? Did Ronnie RayGun have the moral high ground as he declared the USSR "The Evil Empire"?

Re:This just in:

[MadMartigan2001]

I totally agree. Why is it that people seem to think of 1,000,000 people being tortured worse than 1 person. If you are that one person, does it matter that 999,999 others are being tortured just like you.

Each and every individual is only capable of feeling so much pain and the fact that the other people being tortured are also feeling pain does not increase or decrease your pain, nor does your pain influence their pain. (on a physical level)

Emotionally we can say that it is more difficult (for some reason) to deal with the torture of millions than it is to deal with the torture of one. But that does not decrease the amount of pain the 1 tortured individual experienced. If you really look at it logically, if someone says it's worse to torture 1 million than 1, it's because they put more value in the group than the individual. A sad statement.

I do not think this is a situation where the sum of the participants increases the total of the crime. Torture one person or torture a million, the torturer is still guilty of the same crime (torturing people) and the tortured people are just as tortured whether they experienced it alone or in a group.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

The US and China aren't anywhere near being in the same league oppression wise.

Tried criticizing the Jews lately?

Re:This just in:

[nauta]

I do believe that everything will be better in the long run in China, but what happens now is not pleasing And I just hope that I csn wait for that day

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Your brillance shines like a turd in a dark corner. Having master the "I know you are but what am I" arguement, where do you go from here?

Re:This just in:

[iminplaya]

This is based on what? TV news? Have you ever lived in either country? Have you ever been to either country? I hope you're not basing these irrefutable facts of yours from what you read on Slashdot! The fact is that you can be detained for any or no reason in both countries.

Re:This just in:

[cornermuse]

i am a chinese. Well, the desperate "registering users by their real identities" did hurt me, terribly! That is something about Men's freedom, you know! i agree that "All men are created equal!"; and long for freedom much more urgently! Freedom is something more important than one's life, isn't it?

Re:This just in:

[readin]

"What China does is *immaterial*. What Hitler did is immaterial. What Pol Pot did is immaterial. The United States is doing these things NOW. That is ALL that matters. Any noise to the contrary is just to try to distract you."

"We can't preach from the moral high ground if we're not ON the moral high ground. How can we expect other countries to live up to ethical rules that we're willing to ignore whenever we find them inconvenient?"

I once saw a murder being committed. I almost stepped in and stopped it, but then I remember that I had once stolen a pencil when I was in elementary school. Well, I realized that with that burden of guilt I was in no position to claim the moral high ground and interfere with someone else's crime.

Re:This just in:

[Malor]

What I am saying is that we have lost the moral authority to judge. In your example above, perhaps the murderer might know you.... and if you asked him to stop, or stood in between him and his potential victim, he might stop attacking out of respect for you. If, on the other hand, he thinks you're scum, your words are useless, and if you try to intervene you'll probably get the pointy end yourself.

Words don't always work, and there are times when you do have to fight. But if you are respected, that's less likely to happen. If you can convincingly stand on the moral high ground, you can sometimes sway people to believe what you believe. You can sometimes (often?) prevail without a shot being fired or a blow being struck. THAT is the true art of war -- winning without fighting.

People don't like to think of themselves as bad. If you hold yourself to a very high standard and work hard at living up to it, and they KNOW THIS, your words will have more weight with them.

Most people don't expect perfection, but they really detest hypocrisy, and the US reeks of it just now.

Re:This just in:

[ezeri]

In your example above, perhaps the murderer might know you.... and if you asked him to stop, or stood in between him and his potential victim, he might stop attacking out of respect for you. If, on the other hand, he thinks you're scum, your words are useless, and if you try to intervene you'll probably get the pointy end yourself.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I reread that 5 or 6 times, and I'm still shocked. I can't believe someone could possibly be so nieve as to not just believe that tripe, but believe it so much as to post it online in an attempt to win an argument. Wow. I would try to argue but as it apears you are living in a differnt reality from mine my words will probably be wasted.

Re:This just in:

[ikkonoishi]

No.

I mean they locked up the people responsible. Your political beliefs aside.

Re:This just in:

[Malor]

If someone knows and respects you, they are more likely to listen to your opinions. If they know and despise you, not only will they ignore your opinions, they'll actively try not to do what you suggest. What is so hard to understand about this?

Our best weapon, since oh, probably about WW2, was our moral authority. It was better than any other weapon we've ever invented. Any idiot can blow stuff up, and they often do, over and over. It takes courage and discipline to choose a high ethical standard and live up to it, even when your opponents don't. But it confers real advantages in so doing.

Ethics are not a substitute for being strong. They are a supplement. If one is strong both physically and ethically, one's words have far more weight than if one is only strong physically.

And note, in the above example.... chances are pretty good that you're going to have to physically defend that target. But an ethical shield is an advantage; perhaps you can avoid the conflict, perhaps the attacker will be less enthusiastic. That may not be the case, but even a split-second advantage is still an advantage. And maybe, just maybe, you can avoid the conflict altogether. It's not a high chance, but it's better than NO chance.

I've taken quite a lot of karate and I'm under no illusion about what would be the most likely outcome of that hypothetical situation. But I'd want every advantage I could possibly get. One mistake will lose you most fights if you're dealing with trained people. If I make him a little more likely to make that mistake, then I have an advantage. And if he's not totally committed to an attack, a bit confused and uncertain, then it is a HUGE advantage for me.

Whatever reality you're in, it must be very small and mean if you don't see how this works.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

What a load of claptrap. I guess I can stop paying my taxes since they're not being used to hire police or pay congresspeople to make laws.

Of course we have rich and poor. Point us to a country that doesn't and we'll show you a country that just has poor.

And how is my desire not to be held without charge hurting any other citizen? Eh? No answer?

I guess your idea of civility is making wild accusations and claims with nothing but your own hot wind to back you up. At least in this country you're free to do that.

Re:This just in:

[ezeri]

No our best weapon since WW2 has been the fact that we were the only ones who stood between Europe and Soviet Comunist expansion. And even then Europe did was publicly very critical of most of the things we did. And no, choosing the "high ethical standard" is for the most part worth crap in international politics. It is the appearance of ethics that matters. Because thats as far as most people pay attention anyway. And in most cases they can fit the facts to meet there preconcived conceptions, without having to ignore or change them too much. And in this case the US is doing what is feels is the moral thing. We have liberated a nation from a brutal dictator.
There is no advantage at all to having the moral high ground. There would be no fight at all if both sides agreed on the moral high gound and cared about it.

Re:This just in:

[iminplaya]

There's nothing political about it. They worked for the democrats also. I'm very familiar with these people. Under a reasonable system, they would be considered criminals. They set the rules. They ok'ed this, and worse. The stuff we don't have on film. Most the most part, they learned their lesson from the Nixon thing. They're not keeping any evidence around this time. That's how Reagan's and Clinton's boys got away, and countless others before them. And the same thing will happen here, because the public is more concerned about Janet's tits! They only locked up the people that were thrown to the wolves. I think it's called being the fall guy. They fell onto the sword to protect those really responsible. Happens all the time. Then it's business as usual. So, please set aside your political beliefs and open your eyes. And since the voter is not demanding a peek behind the closed doors to verify what's going on, I'm going to assume that they approve of this and hold them responsible, also. If you vote, that would include you. I find it odd for some reason that you can believe that the the people you put in charge are so infallible and saintly. They can do no wrong, and when someone points it out, you vilify them(the messenger)! To think otherwise, apparently, would only make you realize that you made a mistake when you voted for them, and that you just won't accept. You just won't admit that you've been taken for a ride. I suppose that is a normal defense mechanism.

Chineese font?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad I don't read Chineese.

Same ol', same ol'

[PIPBoy3000]

It seems these days that when I read about China censorship, it's merely a continuation of policies that have existed for years.

What's remarkable to me is that the admin group refused and was merely dismissed. A couple decades ago, I'd expect them to be jailed at the least.

Re:Same ol', same ol'

[Zeromous]

while you make a good point, what makes you think they were "merely" dismissed.

Dismissed is a fairly broad word in a PR sense.

What puzzles me, is what makes them think they had anything to gain by refusal. There are so many subtler forms of 'mutiny' when in a position of limited power.

Regardless power to them for standing up for what they believe in.

Re:Same ol', same ol'

[PIPBoy3000]

Hmm. You may be right that "dismissal" is the new euphemism for being jailed or killed. I'll have to be careful about how I use the term should I end up working with Chinese contractors.

On the other hand, if I tell them the last programmer was dismissed due to the poor quality of their work, it might increase their enthusiasm considerably.

Re:Same ol', same ol'

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no, that explains why my Chinese colleague is behaving so strangely after discussing the dismissal of the secretary ...

Re:Same ol', same ol'

[Ironsides]

Hmm. You may be right that "dismissal" is the new euphemism for being jailed or killed. I'll have to be careful about how I use the term should I end up working with Chinese contractors.

I thought the word for that was "termination".

Re:Same ol', same ol'

[SpecBear]

They're just dismissed for now. After a month passes and this is no longer news, they'll start going "missing."

Re:Same ol', same ol'

[mldqj]

What's remarkable to me is that the admin group refused and was merely dismissed. A couple decades ago, I'd expect them to be jailed at the least.

As far as I know, what really happened was that they refused to comply and then resigned.

jinogoism

[Anonymous Coward]

Here comes a flood of jingoistic bullshit.

Re:jinogoism

[Anonymous Coward]

And bullshit about jingoistic bullshit.

Is it meta jingoistic bullshit?

I'm simply not supprized

[DavisNet]

This cannot come as a shock to any one who even casually follow the Chineese record on free speach.

Re:I'm simply not supprized

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it's much worse than in the USA.

Slashdot just keeps spewing anti communist propaganda left over from the fucking 50s.

I guess it makes the US look better by comparison. Like the way the church invented Satanism during the dark ages.

Re:I'm simply not supprized

[tritonic]

Well it doesn't come as a shock to this one, who casually follows Slashdot ... er, well, maybe not that casually actually, but I digress...

Re:I'm simply not supprized

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems to be a simple case of "Men with balls". Perhaps they are related to the gentleman who stared down a tank in Tianamen square about 15 years ago.

Tragic

[proteonic]

Tragic, tragic, really..

Well, I'm off to but cheap clothes and electronics!

Re:Tragic

[Anonymous Coward]

You censored a 'Y'.

Admins with backbone

[Rightcoast]

It really took guts for them to stand up to this, and I wonder if there will be fallout for them the rest of the world will never hear. It says they were merely dismissed, but can you trust that infomation?

Re:Admins with backbone

[alecks]

And by dismissed I mean tourtured and executed.

Re:Admins with backbone

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be stupid.

I know people in china and it's not nearly as bad as Americans like to
pretend it is.

Re:Admins with backbone

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure the reckless CCP government will do whatever they like to punish those who dare to stand up to them by any means.

When SARS striked at the beginning, the central CCP goverment and Canton Province officials tried hard to hide every details about it. A group of brave people, including Yu Huafeng and Cheng Yizhong, made noise about the frightenning facts. Eventually, the government retreated by high pressure from inside and outside of the poor country.

But when everything settled down and people forgot about SARS, the government tried and prosecuted those peole for obviouly rediculous excuses. Mr. Yu Huafeng, one of a handful brave Chinese intellectuals, is still in jail.

I myself, a shameless Chinese coward.

Re:Admins with backbone

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but not everyone in China has a relative who's blowing the necessary corrupt offial to make their supposed transgressions go away.

China isn't Stalinist russia, but it's so corrupt that if you don't have connections that have appropriate officials on their payroll, all kinds of nasty things can happen to you.

Re:Admins with backbone

[wo1verin3]

They intended to not comply, and were dismissed from the admin team or the responsibility of running the BBS by the school, not the government from my understanding.

The school stepping in and dismissing them, not giving them a chance to stand up may have saved them from jail.

Re:Admins with backbone

[mzwaterski]

By dismissed they mean: their heads were dismissed from their bodies...

Re:Admins with backbone

[Anonymous Coward]

care to back any of that up?

Re:Admins with backbone

[Phoenix von Kanton]

Yes, you can. They are almost all student volunteers. It's not their day job to maintain the BBS. They refused to change the software, issued a final notice to the community, and dismissed themselves. The site is probably still up and running internally, but I doubt that anyone would want to use it now.

in 2005 this still happens?

[ocularDeathRay]

you know, america does have a tendancy to suck and all. I mean with our social insecurity problems, unhealth care, and brutal style of diplomacy...

but then I read a story like this ( or at least the summary, I mean who RTFAs anyhow? ) and all I can think is: if I believed in god I would ask him to bless america. since I am not convinced about the god thing I will just chant (in a homer simpson tone) U.S.A.--U.S.A.--U.S.A.--U.S...

and so on.

I don't see how they can do it

[DanielMarkham]

How can you possibly control the actions of billions of people? It just seems all so silly and 20th-century.

With the net on everything from watches to cell phones and jackets, and the myriad of procols available (especially with tunneling) it just seems like closing the door after the horses got out.

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[110010001000]

Because all those watches, cellphones, computers are connected to pipes that they control. Its very possible. They have been doing it since the revolution.

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[Ironsides]

Firewalls+total control of the information infrastructure+ willingness to do anything necessary+trusted computing (well, that last one is a comin).

You may not be able to shut it off completely with the current level of technology, but you can block it off to 99+% of the populace that use electronics. With all the evolution in computers lately, it is essentially an arms race between blocking those who want access to all info outside the great fire wall and those who control the fire wall and are trying to control access. So far those who want access are are winning, but it wouldn't take much technological advnacement to leapfrog the fire wall ahead. (Such as if China mandated all computers must be of this specific type that the gov has complete control of, kinda like paladium).

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[bwy]

How can you possibly control the actions of billions of people?

To start with, you build the world's largest army, and then don't let the 1 billion citizens own guns.

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[xtrvd]

How can you possibly control the actions of billions of people?

Well you see, the Chinese Ministry of Love is responsible for the identification, monitoring, arrest, and torture of dissidents, real or imagined.
They are also responsible for making every Party member love the Party.

Thank you George Orwell.

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[fyoder]

Because all those watches, cellphones, computers are connected to pipes that they control. Its very possible. They have been doing it since the revolution.

Yup. Certainly there are technical counter measures such as proxies and encryption and strategies to get past government filters, but employment of such comes with a risk.

But I wonder how much of a risk, given that these admins refused to implement the policies. What does 'dismissed' mean in actuality with regard to their story? What did they risk?

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[Anonymous Coward]

simple, you use those other protocols. you are arrested. same with hiding info.

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[Anonymous Coward]

What would Chinese citizens with guns be able to do against the military?

Is this the same idea as you and your gun owning buddies storming the White House when you don't like Uncle Sam because he's turned the military against you?

Good luck!

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[Spodlink05]

Firewalls+total control of the information infrastructure+ willingness to do anything necessary+trusted computing (well, that last one is a comin).

Thanks to Cisco Systems and Sun Microsystems, as well as others. It seems human rights go out the window as soon as money is involved.

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[Anonymous Coward]

The military only fires on protesters and protesters don't like guns.
See: Kent State.
Thanks for playing.

Re:I don't see how they can do it

[Anonymous Coward]

What the f... as if hand guns americans own can defend themselves against governmental nukes, or bill collectors for that matter.

What has it done for you, except have an even harder time telling the difference between hollywood movies and real life, considering walmart carries guns & ammo across the food section.

Lemme see, in 9 out of 10 cases, your own kids shoot themselves or a friend, or a gas station is robbed and police there have to assume you're armed if they aren't sure, and will shoot to kill much much easier than our (European) cops.
This whole bullshit about freedom and self defense is serving only the arms manufacturers.

Bunch of uncivilized savages. People with guns do kill.. statistics prove it. With open border and guns flowing in from east europe here, our armed crime rate has gone up too. No civilized nation should allow civilians to have weapons, unless you want an excting civil war. If it is to defend yourself against a government threatening your civil rights, then what the hell are you waiting for?

No Chinese Left Behind

[Tackhead]

> Educational institutions in China have received direct orders from the Chinese Ministry of Education requiring their BBSs to take actions including access limitation and registering users by their real identities, as well as strict content censorship.

Validated identities are required for anybody in a school in order to protect our children from those who might attempt to infiltrate our schools and victimize them. Content "censorship" is nothing more than ensuring they're not exposed to content that they're not ready for. Hell, I'm an adult who likes b00bies, and I was kinda grossed out by Janet's.

Oh, wait, this is China we're talking about. The totalitarian state. Umm, censorship is bad, mmkay?

> The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed.

"miss". So that's how they're spelling "appear" these days. Man, these kids and their SMS/TXT speak.

Re:No Chinese Left Behind

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, better protect those poor underage UNIVERSITY STUDENTS from things gtheir mommas wouldn't approve of.

Re:No Chinese Left Behind

[game kid]

The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed.

"miss". So that's how they're spelling "appear" these days. Man, these kids and their SMS/TXT speak.

Yes. It is scary how easily a government can just snuff dissent out like that. Stories like the ones of these "Disappeared" people invariably frighten me, and this and China's are just few of many.

The story goes...

[WaldoXX]

...the crew was dismissed then
promptly flattened by T82 tanks
on tiananmen square.

Re:The story goes...

[Anonymous Coward]

The killing was done on the streets around Tiananmen Square after the protestors were driven out of the square. The Chinese depend on this error when they claim that no killing happened.

Re:The story goes...

[Rei]

While many people were killed in those protests (about the same percentage of protesters as were killed at Kent State, but far more total protesters and deaths), there are no reports that I have ever come across as to people being "run over" by tanks. In general, people there died from being shot. There's this common notion that tanks were running over people because of the famous footage of a man standing up to a tank; however, he wasn't run over (and in fact, stood his ground for over half an hour, before jumping up *on* the tank to talk to the driver, and then being pulled away by others into the crowd). To this day, nobody knows who that man was; he was initially identified as Wang Weilin, but documents suggest that this name is wrong.

Re:The story goes...

[humaniverse]

One correction: They said no killing in Tiananmen Square which is true. They admitted killing somewhere else. I don't see anything wrong. BTW, US never say killing Iraq civilians is error since dead Iraqi are all terriosts and never say sorry on killing allies since those were all their mistakes. Tell me what is right in this world.

Site

[u16084]

Either /.'d or executed.

BBS admins under Chinese witch-hunt?

[game kid]

My sig's advice might save them. I sure hope so, because I can't stand China's compulsion to be bullies, both in and (depending on what you consider Taiwan/Chinese Taipei) out of their country.

Politics

[Detritus]

The Communist Party should be glad that there are still people who care about politics, even if they have "wrong" ideas. Unlike many of their fellow citizens and party members, who only care about getting rich.

Re:Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't the ones who only cared about getting rich want a stable and free country so they can continue doing it?

You can't have capitalism without contracts and private property laws. It remains to be seen where free speech comes into play, but China is going to get more democratic, whether any of us like that idea or not. The market size is simply too great.

Re:Politics

[Detritus]

I was thinking about the reports that I have read about massive corruption, both inside and outside the party.

Is democracy compatible with bribes and kickbacks?

Re:Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but that doesn't stop the e.g. USA with their "campaign contributions" trying...

It's easy.

[bigtallmofo]

Just have 500,000,000 of them watch the other 500,000,000 of them. (And vice versa).

Done and done.

Re:It's easy.

[EnderWiggin99]

You must have China confused with America and Nazi Germany. You don't need 500,000,000 to watch the other 500,000,000, all you need in a Communist state is a big army.

That's not all

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear things are pretty bad in other countries like China which is just north of Washington DC in more ways than Texas is north of California.

China

[Sv-Manowar]

China have been addressing the "problem" of the internet for a while now, beginning with the block of adult sites and now the censorship of their own countries' sites.

I guess they are learning from the 80's, when the startings of the internet helped demolish stalinism from Eastern Europe. They know they need to control the content people view to avoid letting their control on power drop.

Re:China

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if only they would do something about the millions of spam-originating sites, starting with chinanet.

My goodness!

[Lord Kano]

The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed.

Now THAT is bravery!

China is a country that will incarcerate your for not thinking what you're supposed to. China is a country that will put a bullet in the back of your head and sell your organs to the highest bidder. These people should be revered. They have true bravery.

LK

Re:My goodness!

[DigiShaman]

They were "dismissed". For all I know, that's Chinese political correctness for "Execution via bullet to the head".

Re:My goodness!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not making this up at all, oh no. You're speaking from experience of course.

Re:My goodness!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because everyone knows China is a worker's paradise, where no one goes hungry, where you can have as large a family as you want, where you can say and do whatever you want...

Oh wait. This is a thread about censorship and dismissals by the Chinese government. That paradise is looking an awful lot like a banana republic...

Re:My goodness!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! That happened to him. China shot his brain. Hence his comment.

Re:My goodness!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and it's a really good idea to let people have large families in a heavily over-populated country.

Are you a member of those dumb shits at Amnesty International by any chance?

Re:My goodness!

[Idarubicin]

China is a country that will incarcerate your for not thinking what you're supposed to. China is a country that will put a bullet in the back of your head and sell your organs to the highest bidder. These people should be revered. They have true bravery.

"Sell your organs to the highest bidder"? Charming. You forgot to call them the "damn Chinks" while you were at it.

These guys refused a government directive, and their weak-kneed employer fired them. Good for them for sticking up for what they believe in, but I notice that they haven't been shot and their organs haven't been sold. They haven't disappeared. If I'm not mistaken, they haven't been arrested.

Oh, and selling organs to the highest bidder would be a very capitalist thing to do. A good socialist would give his organs to a Party memeber who needed them, comrade.

Re:My goodness!

[NanotechLobster]

If they were executed and their organs were sold to the highest bidder by the government whom the owner gave his/her organs to, I doubt America would know about it.

Re:My goodness!

[Lord Kano]

"Sell your organs to the highest bidder"? Charming.

No. Disgusting.

You forgot to call them the "damn Chinks" while you were at it.

I don't use words like that. Ever.

These guys refused a government directive, and their weak-kneed employer fired them.

An employer that was controlled by the same government. It's not that they're weak-kneed, everything in China is a part of the government.

Oh, and selling organs to the highest bidder would be a very capitalist thing to do.

In a communist country, there is truly no personal property. Not even your own organs. Everything belongs to the state.

LK

Re:My goodness!

[Spectra72]

I'm so glad you think it is the government's (any government's) duty to tell a family how large it should be. Couple that with a cultural preference for male children and you have the makings for 20million+ young men roaming around the country with no chance of finding wives. No problems there eh?

Re:My goodness!

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the point, retard. China isnt as bad as you think. Pull your head out of your ass.

Re:My goodness!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowhere near as many problems as severe over-population, which will inevitably result in mass-starvation, disease and homelessness. Which is obviously slightly worse than a man not being able to find a wife (the fact you brought this up as the first point tells me something about you). The fact that I have to explain this to you leads me to one conclusion:

YOU ARE DENSE

Re:My goodness!

[FlawZero]

In fact, they dismissed themselves, refusing to do the job. In a statement, they said that they cannot guarantee that the privacy of users will still be protected and requiring a real identity to register is contrary to BBS's spirit. So they decided to quit, not helping the Nanjing University to adapt the system for that purpose (they are mostly volunteer students).

Re:My goodness!

[Spectra72]

Just because you don't have the faculties to see what happens in a society where young males have no chance of having family, in a society with upwards of 10% unemployment already, doesn't mean others share your short-sightedness.

Let's ignore history for a second and pretend that this large group of unmarried men is not turned against their neighboring countries as an invading force. Fine, these guys make it to old age and now what? Does China have a good social welfare and pension system? Does it have any pension system? Why did the past generation choose to keep the male babies over the females..because they felt the boys could support them better in their old age. Well who is going to be around to support this generation if they can't start families? Europe is going to show us what happens to a society (heavily dependent on a young workforce to fund their social programs mind you) that allows its birthrate to fall below replacement rate in about 25-30 years...China will be right behind them to show us what happens when you couple a low birthrate with a heavy preference for one sex over the other. A total collapse of Europe (at least as we now know it as white and predominately judeo-christian in background) and China within 75 years is not out of the realm of possibility.

And really, for the sake of simplicity, I'm just ignoring their upcoming problems with lack of water, destruction of arable land and any problems that global warming (with its concurrent rise in sea levels) causes a country that has an ever increasing percentage of its population cramming into coastal cities. China is F'd in the A.

Re:My goodness!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you're right! A country with a population of 1.5 billion should have families of any size, because people could end up with a poor social welfare system. That unemployment problem you talk about will get worse as the population increases. Read about 'exponential growth' and what it means.

And just to let you know, those problems you describe with pollution are made much, much worse with over-population, genius.

Oppression?

[Anonymous Coward]

What they need is democracy!

As much potenital as china has

[hsmith]

to become an economic powerhouse (well it is one now), it has a lot of growing pains to face in this century. no doubt they are going to become a superpower, but they have a lot of issues that are going to hold them back. once the people start to get some freedoms, it is going to be hard to stop them from wanting them all.

right now they are benifiting from cheap labor, what is going to happen when the people decide they want more for what they do? add on the social issues as well and they are in for turbulent times before they are a viable threat to america.

Re:As much potenital as china has

[DigiShaman]

I'm rather optimistic. The CCP is like a house of cards just waiting to come down. A revolution will take place if China invades Taiwan. Though the Chinese and Taiwanese are bitter rivals, they citizens themselves don't want an all out war. But the CCP who is not made up of polititions democratically will end up ousted by a revolt if such a war happens. At least...the rest of the world can only hope.

Re:As much potenital as china has

[MightyMartian]

There will be no revolution in China. There will be an evolution towards some median between what we'd call liberal democracy and the older Chinese model of an ordered state. I simply don't see the deep underlying desire of many Chinese people to seek a different kind of government. Remember the Communists are ruling in a fashion not all that different from the kind that has run China for millennia.

In the end, I really do suspect that Taiwan will become independent. China is making fierce noises, but that's as much to please the folks in the PRC. China's actions in Hong Kong have been so counterproductive that there is simply no way that the Taiwanese are going to jump back into bed with the mainland. If it were to happen, it will take decades, but in those decades Taiwan and Mainland China will only grow further apart.

you expected what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing all the sarcasm, no one is surprised at China's actions in this matter, nor do they really expect different. However, while I don't condone this action and in fact abhor it, don't be surprised if kids born in the US 10 years from now don't have a RFID chip popped in under their skin right after the APGAR test. It will be justified under any number of reasons, security, health monitoring, etc

Kudos to the team for standing up and saying no, that takes guts

Now go buy your cheap goods at Walmart

Re:you expected what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent point.. I bet the average chinese is more free than the average american, for their vast number alone.. just like credit card security.. bast on small chance to fall victim.. making the system still work.

Every govenment with goals, seeks control.. to help reach those goals. US government wants more control too, of its citizens, of the world.. life is about control. And you can only let people free when you feel they are contained enough that they are as tame as grazing sheep. Sheep who graze and produce and consume.. that's all they want from you. As soon as a government feels they lose control and don't have everything contained, will they reach for measures of control.. vulnerable governments will generally be more controlling than those who have no reason to fear and control. After september 11, you've seen how eager US government is to control.. Encryption legal here is illegal in the US.. FreeSwan was developed in Canada outside US soil, so not to fall under its export regulations preventing world use.

Trust me, US government has you under control.. if it didn't, it would take away your civil rights, and put an RFID tag up your butt indeed.. and most likely will do something like that soon. You'll soon all walk with biometric id cards.. as will we in Europe, with the difference hopefully that we won't have that info stored centrally, and made available for pay by www.ussearch.com or alike.

all your BBS...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are belong to us...

A difference?

[bird603568]

In my PUBLIC high school, they censora crap load of webpages, ie(slashdot, most wikipedia topics, and duh the porn and game site) Whats the difference between PUBLIC schools doing it and China doing it?

Re:A difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because this is America, and when we do something bad, it's because we have a good reason (national security, the children, etc). When our official enemies/rivals do it, it's becaue they are evil. Didn't you get the memo?

Re:A difference?

[Vague but True]

Maybe you have to be 18 to view porn?

Re:A difference?

[BrianGa]

Are you being serious?
The difference is that you can view just about anything you please once you go home; or at least as much as your parents allow.

Re:A difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, this is way different. China is enforcing these policies so they can have control over the DISCUSSION content. They also want to know who exactly is authoring content that China would deem 'radical' and dissentful, so they can lock them up in jail. You don't want to be in a Chinese jail.

Your public high school, on the other hand: It is a school funded by public money. They are just censoring you from reading certain distracting material on the internet. They cannot enforce their policies off school grounds. While you are at school, you are on THEIR time. In China, the government would track you down where ever you are. You could post on a school BBS or a public BBS that is not affiliated with a university. They WILL find you. You are actually required by law to register with the local police that you are going to have internet service, before you register with an ISP. They also monitor all traffic in the country, and if they think you are doing something, it's jail for you. A fair trial? Nope. Especially for posting political content. Universities are hotbeds for this kind of stuff. Political prisoners are promised trials, but instead are detained in deplorable conditions, and have their trials constantly delayed and pushed back, until the accused are too sick to go on, and usually just give up and confess.

Re:A difference?

[the_2nd_coming]

who is the moron who moded this idiot up?

Re:A difference?

[bird603568]

Good thing I just turned 18 :) I'm a Senior.

Re:A difference?

[bird603568]

Look like your the moron because your going to get modded down.

Re:A difference?

[stinkyfingers]

It is not in the PUBLIC interest for you to be looking at slashdot, posting to wikis, or surfing porn at school. The community has (in thoery) come to a certain set of agreed-upon standards for Internet usage in your high school.

In China, the community did not set the standards for Internet usage; the government did. Just because we have free speech here doesn't mean you can surf porn at school.

I would also like to add that tomorrow you don't sleep through your U.S. Government class. If you've already taken that class, retake it.

Re:A difference?

[bird603568]

Im just saying from school. In english class there is a certian set of book we can read and OLNY these book. Our long term sub asked us if we like censorship today and i screamed out "fuck no", trying to be ironic. He asked us what do you thing about the book list and we said it sucked. so he asked if it was ok to read "fear and loathing in las vegas" we said sure. on the book list there arent any romance novels eventhough its a section we are supposed to learn. native sun is banned because it was writen by a prometer of communism. huckleberry fin isnt in standard form. i can go to yahoo games and espn but i cant view bios from nueclear physicist or web encylopedias exect the ones they pay for. Thats not protection that fucking censorship. BTW the only book ive read all 4 year was ferighnheit 451 which is about censorship nad Fear and loathing in las vages i would read if i had a copy at hand. I know there kids that dont have ready internet acces at their home im luck but its the principle of the thing.

Re:A difference?

[bluprint]

I would also like to add that tomorrow you don't sleep through your U.S. Government class. If you've already taken that class, retake it.

...since you obviously didn't digest all the force-fed crap the first time.

Re:A difference?

[bird603568]

but it is in PUBLIC intrest to go to espn, webmail, yahoo games, ebaums, but i cant do reaserch useing wikis or read the news? My classmate has to do a paper of the physicist that made the h-bomb but he cant do it at school because the filter blocks it becasue it has to do with bombs. What if he wanted to go to wikipedia, guess what he cant so it dosent matter.I dosent matter the government is still doing it. Did my parents have a say no, well kind of they voted for the boardmembers which picked the laws. actually if you go to altavista translate you can bypass the surfblock and see porn.

Re:A difference?

[BrianGa]

"certian", "OLNY", "arent", "eventhough", "prometer", "nueclear", "encylopedias", "exect", and "acces"

Maybe you should be paying a little bit more attention in English class, and leaving other activities for after school.

Re:A difference?

[John Miles]

Sweet Jesus. They've banned Warriner's English Grammar and Composition. Those bastards!

Re:A difference?

[NanotechLobster]

Whether or not you all wish to acknowledge this, there is a difference between censoring what is on the computers for kids in school and a country-wide firewall with the addition of government censorship of material transmitted for all people. Yes there is internet censorship in America, but that doesn't make China right for doing it. Hell, that doesn't make America right for doing it. They are all wrong.

Re:A difference?

[liangzai]

FYI, I am in China right now. I am reading and posting on Slashdot. I am downloading Japanese Kokeshi movies with Limewire in the background. Once in a while I look at www.usenetbinaries.com for some new stuff. There's nothing missing on teh intahweb here in China... Looky here... I am writing FALUN GONG, and the thought police is not gonna come after me (and actually I am also writing about this stuff on Chinese BBS:s, which ARE censored).

But this is in my private home. The topic seems to be BBS:s at PUBLIC institutions such as universities. This is not unique to China. It has happened to me when surfing at the Unversity of Arizona in Tucson, in good ole' USA. It has happened to me when surfing at various European institutional computer labs and libraries.

Get real. This is a non-story. It is about an educational surfing etiquette, that's all. It doesn't apply to the whole god damn internet, as viewed in private homes, companies or other places.

Cheers from Shanghai.

Re:A difference?

[lachlan76]

Actually I would have thought that it would be in the interest of the public to allow wikipedia...

Re:A difference?

[JohnFluxx]

It's a non-story because it's only affecting universities!? Dude, you've been in china too long.

Re:A difference?

[philwx]

That's cool and stuff. Looking at your homepage, could you be any more in love with yourself? Ick.

Re:A difference?

[philwx]

I go to the U of A in Tucson, and have seen tons of speech against the war in Iraq. Protests like that in China would be met with ak-47's and tanks, as evidenced with Tiennenmen square. However, I concede that this particular instance of bulletin board stifling, does not appear to be out of the ordinary of any country. Unless they are awaiting an unknown death sentence while the media hooplah dies down. I certainly hope that is not correct. And yes it appears the Chinese gov't doesn't have control over your internet connection. But, it's only a matter of time. Enjoy it while you can.

Re:A difference?

[delirium of disorder]

The public schools will kick you out for things your do in your own home, even legal harmless things like run an open proxy/free shell server. It happened to me.

http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/incident.txt

Jeez man

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard to imagine living in the free world, what it is like to live in a oppressed one.

Oppressed to the point were your life is at stake for just posting something on a BBS.

Seriously. I could say here "Bush is an idiot" a million times, but if I were in China and mentioned the slightest dislike for the Chinese government, it raises eyebrows and could threaten my life and my families lives...and even anyone associated with me!

Why is it like this over there? When will it ever end?

~ J

Civil War

[crimoid]

How long until civil war breaks out in China? I can't imagine living in an environment where censorship is the blatant norm.

Re:Civil War

[MightyMartian]

You need to read some Chinese history, I'm afraid. The way Chinese society and government is structured isn't all that different than what it was during the huge stretch of Imperial times.

If they don't like it

[duncan]

Use your power and vote the current government out. Send a message to the politicians that you will not be censored!

What, oh, it's China, not the US?

My Bad.

Re:If they don't like it

[the_2nd_coming]

really is there a difference?

in the end, nothing gets done.

in the US, Voters are morons and/or kool-aid drinkers and vote what they are told to vote.

in china you just can't vote.

Re:If they don't like it

[DigiShaman]

in the US, Voters are morons and/or kool-aid drinkers and vote what they are told to vote


You elitist asshole. Go fuck yourself. FYI, Europe is starting to think that the Bush policy for spreading democrocy is the CORRECT method. No other president in the past 20 years has accomplished so much...err will as long as things continue to stay on track in the middle east.

Re:If they don't like it

[Anonymous Coward]

China has one viable party. The US has, lemme think here...2. Wow, the US is so much better because they have ONE WHOLE more viable political party to choose from.

Seriously US, update your system so that minority parties have a chance. Sometimes, if I blur my eyes a little bit, China looks just like the US...

Re:If they don't like it

[Cerv]

FYI, Europe is starting to think that the Bush policy for spreading democrocy is the CORRECT method.
Got a source for that? Doesn't chime with the polls I've seen.

Re:If they don't like it

[DigiShaman]

Yes. And to note, this source is well...very liberal to put it bluntly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A145 90-2005Mar7.html

Re:If they don't like it

[the_2nd_coming]

First off... the german and french editorials were asking a question... probably the title of the editorials. The next word could have been "No!"

After that, the article mentions other article writers. Who knows the political leaning of these papers he is quoting from.

No citation of scientific polls. Yeah that is a really good source.

Do you believe everything you read? If so, don't read.

Government sanctioned identity theft

[Skevin]

Funny you should mention that incident, because it presented an easy solution for one of China's biggest problems. (Sorry for getting OT here)

China had effected scrict financial penalties for having more than one child sometine last century. Unfortunately, the typical agricultural sector family unit survives by having cheap labor, in the form of extra children. However, in order not to incur legal penalties, these families often hide those extra kids. As these kids grew up, it quickly became apparent that these kids had no identity, and without identity, they wouldn't be able to find work or acquire government benefits. The PRC refused to ackowledge their existence.

Then, one day, the whole Tiananmen Square incident came about, and the PRC realized they could kill two birds with one stone. Rallying and arming as many "black children" [literal translation] as they could find on short notice, the PRC made a deal: "Kill one student protestor, and you may take possession of his identity. We will then cover the rest of your tuition and housing." After the bloodbath was over, all the "black children" were now legitimate, and since all students were accounted for, "no one" had really died. To this day, China can logistically claim there were no casualties in the incident. And what of the victim's families? They got a letter from school saying that their kids were striking off on their own and didn't want to see them again.

China's very good at understating a lot of facts. (I should know - I still have relatives there.)

Solomon Kevin Chang

Re:Government sanctioned identity theft

[FooGoo]

very interesting

Re:Government sanctioned identity theft

[Anonymous Coward]

application the "one child" policy is a little more nuanced than you describe. It only applies to ethnic Han people living in urban areas. People living in rural aread (e.g., farmers) are allowed to have two and ethnic minorities are allowed to have more children.

Re:Government sanctioned identity theft

[sjwaste]

I took an elective back in college on economic development, taught mostly in economic framework (read: no bias from the professor or readings like you'd be more likely to encounter in a sociology or some other course taught by a "know it all"). We did see some footage from a Chinese bureaucrat telling a story about how a woman wanted to have a second child, and decided to do so, despite the fact that she'd have to repay all the free care given to the first, etc. In her 9th month of pregnancy, the bureaucrat talked about how this lady ran away from home so the birth wouldn't be discovered, but was tracked down and "persuaded" to have an abortion a couple of weeks before her due date. Now, I'm not here to argue the abortion. I happen to believe aborting a child that late is pretty much an awful thing to do, but that's not the issue. The issue to me was the absolute matter-of-factness about the bureaucrat as she told this story. The persuasion, of course, turned out to be more than words. I never could quite get a grip on the seemingly high level of acceptance, as though these sort of events are considered normal.

Anyway, thats just a story, I'm not arguing any points here.

Re:Government sanctioned identity theft

[kokoloko]

You have any documentation for this?

Re:Government sanctioned identity theft

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never heard of such a thing. I live a couple of hundreds of meters away from Peking University and i have friends who were there in 1989.

Even if people are not talking much about it and new students know very little about it, this would be well known. There are teachers at Peking University that were there.

So, a person who killed a student (who would that be except a brain dead solidier) would then prove this to the government and then suddenly become a student at Peking University, the absolute top school in whole of China? Relatives of the killed would not mention this to anyone? Other students would not notice that some people that entered did so without passing the hard entry exams?

That the killing should be a way to try to solve the population problem does even make less sense.

You do not know.

Re:Government sanctioned identity theft

[matt120930]

As far as I know army did the killing. The author is not telling the truth but some hearsay. I am surprised that the rumor is so ridiculous. Anyone can check out the reality by google "64 tiananmen'

backfire?

[bad_outlook]

Isn't this a bit like telling high schoolers that they can't drink or smoke? I feel the best way to stop something is not to highlight it. In this case proxies will allow anon usage anywhere...even /.! CB

I took some online classes at a Chinese University

[Anonymous Coward]

But an hour after my classes, I was hungry for learning again.

Uhhh, so what? This happens ALL the time. Here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute.

A BBS hosted by a public university is limiting access to university students only and not permitting "objectionable content" and we're all irate over how the Chinese government is censoring its people?

Uhhh... do you guys realize that American universities do this ALL THE TIME? Ever heard of ISCABBS? It was, at one point, the largest free BBS in the world. But ONLY students at the hosting university can be in the upper echelons of administration! Ooooo! And you can't flame or post off-topic or the moderator will delete you and if you don't behave they'll kick you off. Ooooo!

CENSORSHIP! OMG WTF!

Double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that we don't hear this outcry when CNN and the other channels censor or bend news coming from for instance the war in Iraq? Oops, sorry... it's not war, it's insurgency. And no, it wasn't a war for oil, but to spread democracy. And by all means, do NOT show any pictures of dead or mutilated American soldiers... It's not censorship, it's to protect the morale.

Huh

[Safety Cap]

Mr. Yu Huafeng, one of a handful brave Chinese intellectuals, is still in jail.

Not so "intellectual" after all, eh?

Too bad he didn't go to another country before spewing his crazy stories about "SARS," "infectious diseases," and "government cover-up." Then he'd be free as an exiled bird, instead of Prisoner #324,394,883

YAY!

[doppleganger871]

Free communisim at its best. I realize censorship happens here, too, but at least you can speak out on slashdot freely. And don't gimme no shit about not being able to. Oh, wait, mod this down, oh left wing moderators.

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it must be conservatism that is the mental disorder becuase only the conservatives rant on and on and on about how liberals are mentally disordered. It's never the other way around. It's like some mass fruedian slip.

Doctor, heal thy self!

Re:YAY!

[doppleganger871]

Good thing I'm not a conservative.

the two bbs forums mentioned in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

all are not avialble(to external IPs). they are now only accessible to on-campus students.

1. http://bbs.nju.edu.cn

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_detail s? q=&url=lilybbs.net

2. http://www.smth.org

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_detail s? q=&url=www.smth.org

as a reference, this is slashdot's traffic

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_detail s? q=&url=slashdot.org

Re:the two bbs forums mentioned in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont know if it only counts the www visits. Many of users were using telnet to accees smth.org.

At least, it has the same order traffic as slashdot.

Re:the two bbs forums mentioned in the article

[bash99]

in last year, the average online number of smth.org is about 17000.

Different Mentality

[$criptah]

In order to understand why these things happen, you need to find out how people of China think. Using Western standards for benchmarking civil rights of China is not a smart idea because not everybody agrees with these standards.

I worked with an exchange student from China a while ago. She was a nice girl, but she could never get the freedom of speech (expression/religion) thing. Whenever we talked about civil rights in China, she pointed out to all the porn, violence, drug use and other negative aspects of life that Americans could see on TV and everywhere else. I could not argue with her. She was raised in a differet atmosphere and that was a big issue between the two of us. She hated many things about the United States and one of them was freedom to say whatever you wanted. Three years of schooling here did not change her one bit.

Now, I know that one person does not represent the whole country, but this experience gave me some insights on why peoeple may not like the Western way of life.

Re:Different Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

What you may be overlooking is the idea that she has been raised as a brainwashed sheep. Of course she hates freedom of speech, her government raised her that way!

It's like certain islamic countries that raise their children to hate the US. Now maybe we give them reason, but when you see 6 year old kids chanting "Death to Americans" how can anyone justify such "educational" systems?

If people are going to hate America, or hate freedom of speech, they should learn to hate when they are old enough to decide on their own to hate something, not becuase they have been told to a million times since birth.

Many countries around the world embark on serious brainwashing techniques on their youth. The US had stints of this during the 50s but it didn't wash. So be careful when you are talking to someone that has been manipulated to such an extreme from childhood, they have been raised in isolation, they have never even been given the opportunity to make their own choices on the matter as an adult.

Re:Different Mentality

[St4rScream]

However she did manage to get an education from an institution that was built from the US econonomy.

Funny she could deal with the enviroment to get what she wanted in the end. (An education)

And isn't that pretty much what we all do ?

Re:Different Mentality

[kz45]

I also remember talking to a co-worker from china one time. I had dinner with her family one time and I asked her about the government in china. She started getting really scared and told me to be quiet (as if somehow, the government was listening to our conversation).

it makes you appreciate the freedoms that we have in the United States.

Re:Different Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

There need not be insight. She was made to think that way and you know it. But making this observation doesn't justify anything, and should not bring you to "mutual understanding" to "respect each other's culture."

Lack of free speech is bullshit. Here's an example. When i first say Mao Tse Tung's portrait, I seriously thought, man, this guy looks like a pig. But if I said this out loud in China I'd probably be jailed. Fine. I'll admit he looks jawdroppingly handsome then... but.

Since Hollywood films are playing in China too, let's say the Chinese have also developed an appreciation for the American standard of beauty. These stars certainly look nothing like mr. pigface Mao. Tom Cruise is handsome too (just look how popular he is in Asia).

Now, you have a woman. Ask her to pick. Who do you want to date, Mao or Tom Cruise, based on the looks. (you gotta understand the right to choice when given one, otherwise you're basically not allowed to have a favorite color or favorite food etc) Who she gonna pick?

Say she makes her pick. Ask her why. She didn't just flip a coin. There is a reason why one appeared superior to the other. One appeared more highly valued. To speak of this value means to voice your opinion.

There is simply no fucking reason to disallow speaking your opinion.

Re:Different Mentality

[Em Adespoton]

What you may be overlooking is the idea that you have been raised as a brainwashed sheep. Of course you hate protection of distinct cultures, your government raised you that way!

It's like certain American countries that raise their children to hate the Commies. Now maybe they give you reason, but when you see 6 year old kids chanting "Death to Commies" how can anyone justify such "educational" systems?

If people are going to hate China, or hate protection of distinct cultures, they should learn to hate when they are old enough to decide on their own to hate something, not becuase they have been told to a million times since birth.

Many countries around the world embark on serious brainwashing techniques on their youth. The US had flagrant stints of this during the 50s, but has since found it is more effective to use tools like Mass Media to do the dirty work. So be careful when you are talking to someone that has been manipulated to such an extreme from childhood, they have been raised in isolation, they have never even been given the opportunity to make their own choices on the matter as an adult.

Re:Different Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

What you may be overlooking is the idea that she has been raised as a brainwashed sheep. Of course she hates freedom of speech, her government raised her that way!

As compared to a capitalist culture which wants to push drugs, porn, violence, etc. and just uses "freedom of speech" as an excuse (but don't criticize those big corporations or you'll be jailed or sued into bankruptcy)? Of course, you've been brainwashed by advertising into thinking it's not like that. Sure free speech came before advertising, but the only reason it's still around is to keep you happily thinking that you're free while you do exactly what a few wealthy folks want you to do.

I'm not saying that I believe the above, but it's a plausible alternative perspective, especially if you've only heard part of the story.

Now remember, your opinion of other countries is a lot like that. You've only heard part of the story. Yes, you do see 6 year old kids chanting "Death to Americans" in some places, but then again, grown Americans were beating up Afghanis and Iraqis when we went to war to _help them_ (to "free them from tyrranical governments"). Did you get then chance to ask any 6-year-old American kids about Afghanis a few months after 9-11? I did. Guess who they equated with terrorists?

The original post in this thread stated that we needed to understand "how people in China think". I don't think that anyone disagrees with that. Even your post is about why people in China think a certain way. The problem is that once you start judging people, it's easy to forget about complex issues like "how they think" and just start treating them as good or bad, friend or foe. Why does a Chinese woman's Communist indoctrination make her any more of a sheep than your Capitalist indoctrination and its "life is all about acquiring money" philosophy? So cool it with the "how can they justify this?" talk until you understand "them" more thoroughly.

Re:Different Mentality

[Jherek Carnelian]

Cute, but poor job.

Chinese totalitarianism is not a "distinct culture" any more than middle-eastern dictatorships are. As far as the protection of actual cultures, the US's multicultural heritage probably makes the country as a whole far more sensitive to the issue than any other country, not perfection but no glass house either. Take a trip to another more ethnically homogenous country (pretty much all of them) and you'll be amazed at some of their common attitudes and policies that make people like David Duke and Matt Hale look like reasonable fellows.

it is more effective to use tools like Mass Media to do the dirty work.

Does not fit with:

they have been raised in isolation, they have never even been given the opportunity to make their own choices on the matter as an adult.

While the mass media usually presents one unified perspective, it does not isolate and remove all opportunity for people to make their own decisions based on other perspectives. They are not difficult to find if you look and certainly not illegal or outlawed, while that is pretty close to the definition of totalitarianism and official practice in China.

Re:Different Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

it makes you appreciate the freedoms that we have in the United States.

To a large extent I do agree with you on that point, but I wouldn't take that as far as you do. I find myself with a similar state of nervousness when talking about some subjects to people in the US. The fact of the matter is that I use a vision producing tea called Ayahuasca about once every month or two, for both religious and medical reasons. It's not an exaggeration to say that if it wasn't for Ayahuasca I might very well be dead right now, and most certainly not in the well-to-do position in life that I managed to claw my way up to. But it's illegal in the US, and Churches that in most other parts of the world would have been heralded for the positive changes they've worked in their members are currently under attack. I've had the sad experience of hearing horror stories of how your DEA operates. From my outside position I can say I don't see a lot of difference between how they work and the methods used to silence people in China. When a country is trying to lock people up for decades because they gather in a church, drink tea to increase levels of certain neurotransmitters produced naturally in the human bain, and sing hyms to commune with their God in hopes of improving their lives - I say things aren't quite as great as they might appear on the surface.

Re:Different Mentality

[kokoloko]

And the difference between "distinct culture" and "brainwashing" is...????

Even if one was stupid enough to argue that "due process" simply was too Western for the Chinese to get behind, you would have a better time convincing me of that if the Chinese had made that decision themselves, in a democratically determined constitution.

Re:Different Mentality

[kz45]

When a country is trying to lock people up for decades because they gather in a church, drink tea to increase levels of certain neurotransmitters produced naturally in the human bain, and sing hyms to commune with their God in hopes of improving their lives - I say things aren't quite as great as they might appear on the surface

im not saying I totally agree with the drug policy of the United States. You are allowed to prctice any religion you would like, you just can't injest an illegal drug.

Some people believe that LSD (which sounds like your tea) changes their lives for the better, when in actuality, it's destroying brain cells.

I don't see a lot of difference between how they work and the methods used to silence people in China

the difference is that in China, you wouldn't be posting this right now.

Re:Different Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a trip to another more ethnically homogenous country (pretty much all of them) and you'll be amazed at some of their common attitudes and policies

Have *you* ever left the US? I ask this because most Americans I hear that say things like that never have. They base their opinion on the information they get about other countries from the mass media.

You seem to fit the above description since you said that the mass media "does not isolate and remove all opportunity for people to make their own decisions based on other perspectives". It's truly enlightening to watch the same news here in the US as reported by the media of other countries. You'd be surprised how much information never gets to you, unless you really look for it (yeah, the 'net is great, and we don't have a Great Firewall yet. I wonder if this would change if more people became interested in reading foreign news sites).

Re:Different Mentality

[Em Adespoton]

I admit it was a pretty bad slashjob; but my argument was not supposed to hang together all that well; it was just supposed to make people reading the parent post realize that everyone is brainwashed to some degree, which is where the "Distinct Culture" quip came from. The US was created with a multicultural "melting pot" ideology, as opposed to the problematic "mosaic" ideology many other countries use. This means that in the US, non-standard cultural values often tend to be ignored instead of respected as distinct. Many Americans tend to think that everyone else shares a similar fundamental world view, or else has been brainwashed by someone with a nefarious agenda.

Re:Different Mentality

[Em Adespoton]

And the difference between "distinct culture" and "brainwashing" is...????

I see you got my point :)

The US has a distinct culture. It is not shared by the rest of the world. You fill in the rest. Remember who said "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for lunch."

Remember also that AFAIK, no country in the world has created a democratically determined constitution. If you argue that the US has, it's time to re-learn your US history; the US is not a democracy. One bonus of the US system is that it doesn't obliterate access to differing accounts, even if it sometimes makes them hard to get to.

Please don't go assuming that I'm being a Chinese apologist; I personally would not want to live there for any length of time, and am saddened that most people there (as in the rest of the world) have no choice about what country they live in. However, I have the same attitude toward the USA.

Re:Different Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

You are allowed to prctice any religion you would like, you just can't injest an illegal drug.

Quite convenient. To me that sounds a bit like "We're allowed to say anything we want. As long as it's not against party lines". Or, perhaps, "You're free to be a Christian, so long as you do not use the New Testament". Until recently the US always made a distinction between recreational drug use and drug use in a religious setting, within a historic framework, that obviously held no danger to the participants or the community at large. Two examples being Christianity and communion wine during the prohibition, and the Native American Churchs use of peyote.

Some people believe that LSD (which sounds like your tea)

They're totally different in chemical structure, mental effects - especially in regards to dissociative states, and history of religious use.

changes their lives for the better, when in actuality, it's destroying brain cells.

Again there's a huge difference here. The main active component of the tea is already being produced in the brain of every human on the planet. While it's theoretically possible that there's some problem relating to non-endogenous uptake, the current experimental data seems to back up the common sense assumption that this is severely unlikely. As regards improvement of life for the better, it's not an idle claim. A number of studies in Brazil have shown quite impressive success for turning peoples lives around, especially in regions suffering from high rates of alcohol abuse or in families with a history of clinical depression.

the difference is that in China, you wouldn't be posting this right now.

True, but if my association with the US was more than an occasional visit, I doubt I'd even be posting this anonymously! Heck, I'm sure US UDV and Daime members would quite prefer no one talk about it, as most of them are too scared to say anything either. Many, if not most, serious Ayahuasca users in the US have been reduced to speaking in cyphers and metaphors in public.

Re:Different Mentality

[kz45]

Quite convenient. To me that sounds a bit like "We're allowed to say anything we want. As long as it's not against party lines". Or, perhaps, "You're free to be a Christian, so long as you do not use the New Testament". Until recently the US always made a distinction between recreational drug use and drug use in a religious setting, within a historic framework, that obviously held no danger to the participants or the community at large. Two examples being Christianity and communion wine during the prohibition, and the Native American Churchs use of peyote.

You can practice and worship any religion that you would like in the United States.

I think the reason the US does not allow drug usage in a religious setting is because of it's immediate wide spread abuse. People would start religions just so they could smoke pot or smoke crack.

If you would like to use drugs without being bothered, why don't you go to a country that allows that? It's not like the government here has a gun to your head, forcing you to stay (unlike some countries).

Many, if not most, serious Ayahuasca users in the US have been reduced to speaking in cyphers and metaphors in public.

I think you are blowing this way out of proportion..or maybe you are just a little bit too paranoid (I think it's the "tea"). Unless you are within earshot of a police officer or maybe a federal agent, I think it's safe to say you can talk about ayahuasca in public without getting in trouble (the general public wouldn't even know what the hell that was).

illegal drug users have been known for years to talk in metaphors.

Re:Different Mentality

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

but when you see 6 year old kids chanting "Death to Commies"

And when and where exactly have you seen 6 year old kids chanting "death to commies"?

Re:Different Mentality

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Whenever we talked about civil rights in China, she pointed out to all the porn, violence, drug use and other negative aspects of life that Americans could see on TV and everywhere else.

There is nothing inherently wrong with seeing porn, violence and drug use on TV.

This chinese exchange student thinks western culture has a problem because of what is being shown on TV and made available through other communication forms. We think chinese culture has a problem because someone can be thrown in jail or executed because of an opinion they stated. Seems like a pretty one-sided debate to me...

Re:Different Mentality

[nauta]

thrown in jail or executed because of an opinion they stated This is not true in China today. Anyway, if you insist on calling on people, publicly, to throw down the government, you may be in trouble. But I doubt that most people just laugh at you. Even in 1989, I was 8 at the time, but I can still tell that nothing will change because my parents and all my adult relatives din not give a shit to student movement. I can understand that now. I care more about something more practical, such as finding a job or the improvement in the juridical process, not the general concept such as freedom.

Re:Different Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Have *you* ever left the US? I ask this because most Americans I hear that say things like that never have. They base their opinion on the information they get about other countries from the mass media.

France, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, Korea, Thailand. Yes, I've been to a few other countries, and seen some really ugly attitudes about foreigners -- usually not directed at me, but just astonishing statements made during regular conversation.

As for other news sources, we have plenty, even without the net. Most libraries carry foreign newspapers and magazines, foreign and semi-foreign news shows like BBC America are available on the radio and cable tv. Even domestic news sources carry non-party-line stuff, see the pacifica radio news network for one example of a very different editorial bias. Its out there and legally available to anyone willing to look for it. So yes, I stand by my original statement that unlike China we are not isolated and do have plenty of opportunity to learn about non party-line viewpoints.

Re:Different Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

If you would like to use drugs without being bothered, why don't you go to a country that allows that?

I thought I was fairly clear from the beginning that I'm not from the US.

or maybe you are just a little bit too paranoid (I think it's the "tea")

A personal attack, nice. I think that's a fairly clear sign that civilized discussion has come to an end. It's also starting to give me a better idea of why the US UDV and Daime branches never bother with this kind of thing.

Re:Different Mentality

[sadiklis]

she pointed out to all the porn, violence, drug use and other negative aspects of life that Americans could see on TV and everywhere else

I hope you did point out to her that she has never heard of all the porn, violence and drugs in China only because Chinese goverment won't let TV, the press or anyone else to say a word about it.

Re:Different Mentality

[kz45]

I thought I was fairly clear from the beginning that I'm not from the US.

okay, then why the complaining?

Re:Different Mentality

[kz45]

A personal attack, nice. I think that's a fairly clear sign that civilized discussion has come to an end. It's also starting to give me a better idea of why the US UDV and Daime branches never bother with this kind of thing.

I was just trying to point out that the U.S is not like what you said (obviously because you have never been here).

Also, im one person in a population of millions. You shouldn't generalize.

And in other news...

[LoganTeamX]

Webhosting facilities report a massive upswing in server rentals! Apparently the latest server benchmark is who can install the Chinese-Standard language packs first for MyPHPBB!

What's next?

[terrygao]

What's next? The "Thought Police" will go after their students because they are showing too much expressions in front of the telescreens? Regardless how fast Chinese economy is developing, imho, a significent amount of Chinese people have been de-humanized. I don't want to elaborate too much because it hurts too much.

Seriously...

[iamzack]

FUCK China. Fuck them in their stupid asses. The government is so full of shit it's coming out their noses. Say what you want about Bush & Co. or our whole "democracy", but would you trade it for China's dictatorship?

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea totally, our "democracy" is fucked, the left wingers are so busy overturning majority votes for minority views that I can't keep up.... Mr. Kerry, every vote counts? Yea, as long as it doesn't interfere with an activist judges pov...

Perhaps W could lecture them on freedom

[srobert]

Maybe GWB should lecture the Communist China on the value of freedom of speech and religion. Oh wait!, if he does that, they might not finance our collossal deficit. Better let them be as brutal as they want to their own, as long as they keep loaning the U.S. money.
If I had my way the U.S. would only recognize ONE China. The one whose government is in Taipei.

Re:Perhaps W could lecture them on freedom

[MightyMartian]

If I had my way the U.S. would only recognize ONE China. The one whose government is in Taipei.

The US did that for nearly a quarter of a century. Mao had even wanted to try to get contacts within the US, but the Red haters were so busy thinking the PRC was just a Soviet envelope with a funny-looking stamp that they missed a substantial opportunity.

You better read what Chiang Kaishek was doing before the Communists finally kicked his vicious, murderous hide off the mainland. I'm not defending Mao here, but the Nationalists were one big bag of rotten apples, not to mention total military incompetents.

A foreign policy has to be built at some point on the bedrock of reality. The idiotic recognition until Nixon's time of the Nationalists in Taiwan was a foreign policy built on fantasy. It deprived the US of any sort of access or influence in China, leaving it all in the hands of the USSR.

Now I'm no fan of the PRC, but the Nationalists stopped controlling China in 1949 (and one can argue that they hadn't controlled it since the Japanese invasion). The Nationalists so alienated the Chinese people that many quite gladly offered aid to the Communists.

Man, don't they teach history where you come from? Ever even read a book on China?

Re:Perhaps W could lecture them on freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow I knew that some petulant little high school prick would find a way to vent his anger at George Bush.

Re:Perhaps W could lecture them on freedom

[MobyTurbo]

Clinton in an unguarded moment in a speach said that China and Japan can't be criticised or otherwise sanctioned much by America because they are financing the national debt.

Re:Perhaps W could lecture them on freedom

[srobert]

I've been out of high school for more than 20 years.

Re:Perhaps W could lecture them on freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Then don't post bullshit if you don't know anything. China's population is over 60x that of Taiwan. If there's any country that's representative of the Chinese people, it would be China, and not Taiwan.

I'm sick and tired of all this bullshit from people who only know China from what they hear from the media. Go there, take a look, and open your eyes. People live their lives there without trouble. Goddamn ignorant people like yourself only cause trouble for the rest of the world.

Chineese record on free speech?

[nurb432]

Sorry, but in china they dont belive that "free speech" is a right of the people.

So its not a 'record', its more of a difference in opinion.

Re:Chineese record on free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, "free speech" is a right of the People, but anyone who opposes the government opposes the People, and therefore is not the People, and therefore has no rights...

Or something like that.

So ... where are all the neo-cons now

[Anonymous Coward]

A backwards country run by evil tyrants who have enslaved billions.

So what do our overly-affluent leaders do?

Negotiate a trade agreement! Evil scumbags.

AFAICS, rich people are absolutely evil. To all you wealthy assholes, thanks for selling out the human race, ... fing jerks.

Oh, and thank god for cosmic justice, eh.

I wonder how...

[Polly_Morf]

I wonder how Slashdot would look with such rules.

You think that's oppression?

[micsmith]

This kind of oppression is nothing compared to the persecution of good people that's going on there:
http://clearwisdom.net/emh/special_column/death_ca ses/death_list.html

But what is Falun Gong? Click here(video) or here(website)

Probably a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys had gunpowder around the time of the Roman Empire, for chrissake. If they were populated by Western-style heroes -- ambitious, individualistic iconoclasts -- they would have had nuclear weapons by the end of the first millennium AD. They would have ownz0red everybody else in short order. The Magna Carta would have been written in cuneiform.

Cultural monotony might prove to have its upsides.

The Falls of of Chinese College BBS

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been a series of BBS's on Chinese educational network that have been shut down by Chinese government over the years due to political concerns. Some of the most famous incidents include the shutdown of the Peking University BBS and Science Academy BBS in 1997 and 1998. The hard disks of these two BBS's were later brought to U.S., and a group of Chinese students in the Boston area merged the data of the two hard disks to create MITBBS in 1998, which has now evolved into the largest BBS system in the overseas Chinese community. Forgive me for not giving the link. They don't want a /. effect since they're already experiencing much higher than usual traffic after this recent wave of the Chinese college BBS shutdowns. Many Chinese BBS-addicts that have no where to go have had to turn to MITBBS. You can google its address if you're really curious. The shutdown of the YTHT BBS in Peking University in 2004 brought a roar from all over the Chinese network. Some young law professors from the Peking University that also enjoyed the BBS life on YTHT even wrote open letters to question the administration from the legal point of view on this issue. But the officials in charge never gave any response. This recent shut-off wave of college BBS's has seriously hurt a large portion of Chinese intellectuals who before this had whole-heartedly believed that China was gradually converting to an open and free-speech country. This is a big step backward. Now nobody knows what's coming next. People might have to learn to tolerate, and some of them might try setting up off-campus BBS's that are open to everybody, but they would be clamped down by the government at any moment as well.

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

Is China getting softer? My understanding is that such audacity would have earned those people bullets in the backs of their brains...

The slashdot summary is full of lies

[northcat]

The whole slashdot summary is a big lie. Here is a quick summary of what I can gather from the article:

1. The chat rooms operated by the Tsinghua University have been closed down for non-students and, obviously, students require to indentify themselves.
2. NO BBS has been asked to get identification from its users. No BBS have been asked to censor themselves (at least not in a new development and not in the context of this article)
3. Only Tsinghua University has been asked to get identification from its students to access its chatrooms. No other university has been asked to do this (in the context of this article, of course).
4. New rules have been passed which, according to TFA, 'will hold chat room operators liable for any "objectionable content" on their sites.' So it must be speaking of keeping "objectional content" away from websites of chatrooms or some online forums. And this need not be political content but just things like porn. But keep in mind that TFA is full of opinion [like calling the move an effort "to limit the exchange of ideas on the Internet" and "the Communist Party's Propaganda Department". And it states opinions as facts including it in the same sentences as facts instead of stating it separately. Like "China's most popular online chat room, hosted by Beijing's Tsinghua University, has been closed to non-students to limit the exchange of ideas on the Internet" and "the Communist Party's Propaganda Department has increased its monitoring of cyberspace for subversive trends, the report said." (emphasis mine)] so it's hard to distinguish what is fact and what is opinion. TFA continues to say that " As a result, Weblog portals have discouraged their users from discussing political or sensitive topics." But it's just the editors' opinion and it doesn't have any recent developments to back it up. (Maybe just the old complaints)
5. TFA also says the Ministry of Education has ' issued a circular on strengthening "political thought" at universities'. Again, you can't tell what is fact and what is the editors' opinion.
6. Nowhere does the article mention anything about the "dismissal of the admin team of Nanjing Univesity". This might be another article not linked in summary or this might be just a lie by the poster.

The summary is just one big lie trying to make China look bad, written by someone who hates China. (And it groups a lot of stories together) And even TFA is not very unbiased. Proof that Slashdot has no journalistic integrity or ethics and occasionally spews out complete lies.

Re:The slashdot summary is full of lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof that Slashdot has no journalistic integrity

There are people who think Slashdot has journalistic integrity? I would have thought the article dupes and occasional instances where it's clear the editors only gave a quick glance to the linked content would make that abuntly clear to anyone who's read slashdot for more than a week or two.

Re:The slashdot summary is full of lies

[Phoenix von Kanton]

1. Not just non-students. They are blocking all the IPs outside the university. That is partly why the students are protesting.
2. Of course. When everyone's real name is exposed, you don't really need censorship to prevent them from talking against the government.
3. I don't know about this one so I have no comment. The students there have been required to provide a true campus address when they register on the BBS for quite some time now. It's not anything new.
4. TFA might be full of opinions, but I wouldn't believe the government limits access to the BBS of the top university that produced the current president just so that people off campus won't see porn...
5. From the notice issued by the admins of the two BBSs, that seems to be a fact.
6. The admins refused to change the system, sent out a final notice to the community, and dismissed themselves. They are mostly student volunteers. They can quit anytime.
And, you need proof that Slashdot has no journalistic integrity!? No, I didn't read TFA.

Re:The slashdot summary is full of lies

[northcat]

Yeah, you obviously didn't read TFA. And you haven't provided even one source to back up your claims.

Re:The slashdot summary is full of lies

[Phoenix von Kanton]

Mod me down then. I'm just telling what I know. You are calling the summary "one big lie", but your own summary of TFA provides nothing against the summary except #6, for which I was trying to provide more information. You are basically saying, the stuff in the summary is mostly not new so it's not worth the fuss. If you think such a post on slashdot will make China look bad, you've obviously overestimated the political importance of the readers here. And I don't think the post made China look bad, either. From the responses here, you will see people are amazed by the fact that the admins can actually refuse without being put in jail. I'd say this article actually shows China has improved, though just a small bit. And I must admit I don't have the guts to post links that support my claims. It would not be too hard to find out who I am from my user name and the links. I guess I just made myself a non-anonymous coward?

Re:The slashdot summary is full of lies

[Anonymous Coward]

The Washington Times article is not very accurate about many things. The summary is correct. It *is* about BBSs, *not* chatrooms. How can I know? Because I am one of the admins of a educational BBS (can't name it) in China, and we get the orders too. Now we are on the edge of shutting down, because we are not gonna obey these orders.

Re:The slashdot summary is full of lies

[bash99]

The new from Washington Times contains many mistake, But I don't think it make China look bad. But most people who take those as part of their life(they tend to spent 4 hours one day on it) think this action is bad. China is not so hard, no one is shoot, but it's still bad. one user of those bbses.

So does this mean

[Tooxs]

I'll only be able to browse approved Chinese sites on that new Lenovo laptop.

Re:So does this mean

[humaniverse]

Otherwise, your kids will browse prono, drug, gun and suicide info on Dell laptop.

Re:So does this mean

[Tooxs]

My kids are grown, but I'd still rather deal with that than have someone else do it for me.

Semi valid question..

[fliptout]

China already had two revolutions in the last century- first to overthrow the last imperial dynasty, and second, the communist revolution. The communist were able to seize control in 1949 largely because Mao was able to harness the discontent with Chiang Kai Shek's dictatorial government.

Another thing many westerners do not understand is the politcal apathy of many of china's intelligentsia. The people know they do not have control, so they put it out of their minds. Concerning censorship- that is a legacy of china's conservative, confucian culture. They have been conservative for a very long time, and traditions like that die hard. The majority of people there have no desire to view what they censor, like porn or what have you.

Just to qualify what I've said, I've lived in china, and I speak mandarin.

MASS REPLY!

[orionware]

Because I can't reply to every post from the tin foil hat wearing crowd, this mass reply will have to do.

Tin foil hat jackasses: This is the type of control Bush and his cronies want to have over US!

Me: STFU

Fun with pattern replacement

[halber_mensch]

sed 's/[Ee]ducational\ [Ii]nstitution/peer-to-peer\ network/g; s/China/America/g; s/Chinese\ Ministry\ of\ Education/RIAA/g; s/BBS/administrator/g; s/Nanjing/Louisiana\ State/g'


... and suddenly this is a very familiar story...

Canada

[bayers]

Canada has rabid hate speech laws and you can get into big trouble if you speak out.

Canada has rabid slander and lible laws and you can get into big trouble if you speak out.

It's all on the grey scale, China -> Canada -> US

China has improved dramatically over the last few decades and I'm holding out hope that Canada will improve someday too.

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada it is only rabid if you are spreading hate. Things like advocating killing Jews, beating gays etc. Not quite the same thing. You can still go around saying Paul Martin is a dick etc

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

And USA is lacking independent media. Criticize Iraqi war and you're a traitor and lose your job and get scrutinized strategically by Fox news.
Don't get me started. You're only as free as you are ignorant of how little free you really are.
When it comes to propaganda and indoctrination, you two have quite a bit in common. Let's not be reminded of McCarthyism. The US tortures and indignifies anyone without fair trial or proof of guilt, as long as they label them a threat to national security. China KNOWS these things are a threat to national security. There are plenty of (external) powers out there trying to bring china down. It will not benefit china's steadfast growth to allow it to get watered down by lost people with petty concerns. I hope they'll never become the egocentric individualists we get indoctrinated with. As long as dictators don't supress people with the sole purpose to enrich themselves, but apply the same rules to themselves, I'm all for it. China will however become individualistic like any, because it's a consequence and prerequisite for capitalism, which is forcing itself onto everyone under globalism. China just needs to get rich and powerful enough to afford it like the US did after butchering the natives.

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

So they can rap along about the Bloods and the Cribs and the KKK?

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the KKK is illegal as an organization in Canada

Boy, little Birdy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, little Birdy, all these "overrated" and "troll" posts.... ants up you ass today?

Re:Boy, little Birdy...

[bird603568]

At least i dont post as AC. Your just a coward who dosent want to be modded down. Just because what i saw is not what people agree with dosent make it wrong.

Re:Boy, little Birdy...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Well, little boy, if it's wrong, than it does make it wrong.

The rebuttal summary is full of lies

[juggledean]

1. The Slashdot summary was about BBS's TFA was about chatrooms. Perhaps the AC and the rebutter have some other source but it's not revealed here.
2. re-read 1, then de-flame.
3. Of course, commenting with out knowledge is often a lie.
4. Might be, then again, if you had read it you might be able to tell some truth here.
5. Again BBS does NOT equal chat-room.
6. Fabrication, unless rebutter is close to the team how can he know.

and the last line, well I can see there is some truth there.

But seriously folks, those chinese BBS's act the way slashdot can, (and does at it's best). Raising needless FUD with the lies in the summary is not going to enlighten anyone.

Re:The rebuttal summary is full of lies

[Phoenix von Kanton]

Though I don't like being called a liar, I appreciate your objectiveness.

I will not post the sources for my claims, so if you don't believe me, ignore me.

As someone who once frequented the BBS mentioned and have friends who still do, I'm fairly sure about #6. You don't need to be close to the team. If you know how they became admins, you will understand.

And I agree with your last two sentences.

Re:The rebuttal summary is full of lies

[juggledean]

Thank-you, and I appreciate yours.

Wired ran this today

Free web: China has blocked off-campus internet users from accessing several bulletin boards operated by universities as part of a government clampdown on outspoken domestic websites.

Shuimu Tsinghua, a popular bulletin board run by Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, was among the sites sealed to outside participants last week, the Beijing Times reported. A note posted on the bulletin board's homepage announced the move and said it had been made in keeping with a new policy passed by the Ministry of Education.

This seems to support you and the Slashdot summary over TFA.

xie xie

neologism

[cryptochrome]

Actually men in that case was refering to women as well. It was refering to the race of man.

That's debateable, but it raises a good point. English could really use the following:

1) There's a lot of griping over the fact that "man" is the basis for "woman". The feminist solution of "womyn" is lousy, unless they consider themselves to be members of the humyn race (And "herstory" is just plain silly). It also neglects the confusion over whether "man" is meant in the male sense or in the general sense, etc. A much better solution is a few new words for male cases specifically. At the moment I can only think of three cases, all of which can be solved by substituting a new word or two to eliminate the bias. Here's my suggestions:
old m:f:either -> new m:f:either
man: WOman: man -> WAPman: WOman: man
men: WOmen: men -> WAPmen: WOmen: men
male: FEmale: - -> mel: fem: -

2)Gender-neutral pronouns so people aren't forced to pick one unnecessarily or use alkward him/her or he/she constructs, or abuse of the plural they/them:
male: he, him, his
female: she, her, hers
neither: it, it, its
any: ey, em, eir (Spivak pronouns)
Or we could just submit to the inevitable and officially make they/them both gender and number neutral.

3) The re-establishment of the words "man" and "men" as a general concept inclusive of both genders. That way we can still say "fireman" or "human" or "woman" without a lot of griping over sexism. And we can dump a lot of unnecessarily gendered words.

4) Adoption of gender-neutral titles: Ser instead of sir/madam.

I think I read somewhere that the word "man" in words like "fireman" actually comes from the latin "manus", meaning not a male but "hand". Makes sense. Actually, "jack" is used in a similar way for manual laborers.

Re:neologism

[ikkonoishi]

Or we could leave it as it is without any of the PC crap.

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=l4e q7utroe2f?tname=man&sbid=lc01a&method=6

USAGE NOTE Traditionally, many writers have used man and words derived from it to designate any or all of the human race regardless of sex. In fact, this is the oldest use of the word. In Old English the principal sense of man was "a human," and the words wer and wyf (or wæpman and wifman) were used to refer to "a male human" and "a female human" respectively. But in Middle English man displaced wer as the term for "a male human," while wyfman (which evolved into present-day woman) was retained for "a female human." Despite this change, man continued to carry its original sense of "a human" as well, resulting in an asymmetrical arrangement that many criticize as sexist.

You mean like the army of the Soviet Union?

[absurdist]

And no, I'm not passing on the idiot slashdot meme. The Soviet Union had one of the largest standing armies in the world AND a disarmed citizenry. When the population became completely fed up, none of that mattered any more; the government fell like a house of cards regardless. The same thing will happen in China and/or the US when the dissention reaches critical mass. As long as enough people have bread and circuses, however, they're willing to overlook little things like other people's rights.

MOD PARENT UP

[r6144]

I have seen their resignation letter. They resigned rather than got dismissed.

MOD PARENT UP

[r6144]

That's also my version of the fact.

Grandparent is mostly right

[r6144]

here are some relevant links .

All these are in Chinese and I don't have time to translate them (though Babelfish helps a little), and they are from BBSs, so they might not be all that accurate. Also, given current events I'm not sure that these links will continue to work.

I don't think it is dangerous in any way to post these links here, even if the government is as oppressive as you seem to think. Heck, I'm just helping you get the facts straight.

Yes.

[Stoutlimb]

The answer to your question is yes. In general, the presidents who were fighting the cold war had the moral high ground.

Some fell, some stumbled, but in general, the West had the moral high ground.

You can't say that now.

It comes down to "real identities"

[blackhedd]

The biggest problem that the Chinese authorities have with electronic communications is their need to know who is talking. The essential part of this story is the bit about "real identities," and it's also why these courageous sysadmins, at great risk to their own lives, drew the line at that point.
China has two different societies: the urbanized incipient middle class, and the unwashed rural masses. The former group is a bit smaller than the population of the US, while the latter group numbers about a billion or so.
The goal in respect to the countryside is to simply to starve the people while preventing a repeat of the Maoist Revolution. These people are controlled through corrupt, brutal (and somewhat unruly) local officials who make sure that nothing like modern communications technology ever becomes widely available. In essence, the rural population never really finds out what they are missing.
The people in the larger cities, however, are being fed on the dream of accession to a middle-class lifestyle, complete with cars and electronic gadgets. If all goes according to plan, this group will rapidly become a source of final demand about as big as the US currently is. And the key is to keep them from realizing that they could do far better still with some real freedom of speech. That's why nothing matters more to the authorities than being able to neutralize that small sliver of independent-thinking, dangerous people. And you can't make them disappear in the middle of the night unless you can positively identify them.

Another version

[rubylith]

I am a Nanjing University alumni, the version of the story I heard from my schoolmates is that the admin team of Lily BBS (BBS of Nanjing University) planned a mass quit but was persuaded not to by the president of the university. A dozen of other university BBSs were affected as well. On the first day following this incident, many of the affected bulletin boards changed their splash screens to express the students' dissatisfactions. In particular, the soccer board of the BBS of Tsinghua University has changed their splash to the Chinese character "CAO" -- meaning "F*CK" in English. The access limitations were mainly targeting users logging on from outside China, meaning that Chinese students in the U.S. can no longer access these BBSs now, but there's no more limitation than before for people inside mainland China. Also, registering users by their real identities have been a practice by most university BBSs since a long long time ago.

BTW, I really hate people saying the word "brainwashed", I'd rather think everybody is brainwashed by his/her own surroundings.

Re:Another version

[neanderlander]

I really hate people saying the word "brainwashed", I'd rather think everybody is brainwashed by his/her own surroundings. I agree, the patriotisme of US citizens truely amazes me sometimes. Borders on being brainwashed to me. Also, i'm relieved that people dare to post "CAO" on their BBS splashscreens. It seems the chinese authorities aren't THAT oppressive or.., these admins are realy brave.

Re:Another version

[blackhedd]

No one has trouble with "CAO," that's just some innocent young people having fun.
Now how about "FALUN GONG"? That would be a little different.

Re:Another version

[noonfun]

"The access limitations were mainly targeting users logging on from outside China, meaning that Chinese students in the U.S. can no longer access these BBSs now, but there's no more limitation than before for people inside mainland China."

Absolutely not the truth. Only the students in the campus can access those BBSes now. The people outside is banned.

"Also, registering users by their real identities have been a practice by most university BBSs since a long long time ago."

As far as I know, only two or three BBSes was required to register by real ID before this accident.

Re:Another version

[Anonymous Coward]

NJU BBS can be accessed from ChinaNET

Re:Another version

[rubylith]

Yes, you are right. The BBSs are only open to on-campus users now.

For the real ID thing, I meant that I had to give my real name when registering for an username. Of course the username can be arbitrary, and the real name is not visible except to the admin'tors. That was my experience for most BBSs I used.

Anyway, Chinese students everywhere are very sad about this incident.

dismissed?

[neanderlander]

The fact that the board admins are dismissed might seem not so bad. But does anybody know what other consequences they might suffer? How about their carreers? Wil they have a record now that will limit what jobs they can get? There are so many possible other repercussions that may follow (other then the most obvious). I'm not saying that the bad stuff is happening there, but do we actually know? Can we somehow get in touch with them?

I could be wrong here.

[mcc]

But it looks to me like the Soviet Union fell less because the citizenry got fed up, as it did because the government lost its capacity to maintain order. The citizenry, it seems, in the late 80s weren't any more empowered or oppressed than they were in the 40 years previous. The only thing that changed were the machines of oppression; and the change wasn't even in terms of getting more compassionate, it was in terms of efficacy at oppression.

For example I seem to remember-- again, could be wrong-- that while the soviet union had a massive standing army, by the end, that army wasn't getting paid.

Re:I could be wrong here.

[demachina]

This is an interesting form of revisionism, but it does really correspond to facts. The Soviet Union was largely dismantled by its own government, a fellow named Gorbachev.

Its open to debate whether it was his intent with glasnost(openness) and perestroika(restructuring) to completely dismantle communist rule though that it was an inevitable result of relaxing the Soviet Union's grip on Eastern Europe and relaxing repression withint the U.S.S.R. As I recall his reforms started snowballing, the hard liners attempted a coup but it was to late, and in the power vacuum created by the coup Yeltsin and a popular uprising finished removing the Communists.

Americans in particular are fond of the illusion that they and Reagan should take all the credit. Only thing Reagan had to do with it was in influencing Gorbachev and I doubt he influenced him much. Gorbachev was a very smart money, and Reagan was a clueless, Alzheimer afflicted actor, whose main talent was reading from a teleprompter.

Re:I could be wrong here.

[mcc]

Its open to debate whether it was his intent with glasnost(openness) and perestroika(restructuring) to completely dismantle communist rule though that it was an inevitable result of relaxing the Soviet Union's grip on Eastern Europe and relaxing repression withint the U.S.S.R. As I recall his reforms started snowballing, the hard liners attempted a coup but it was to late, and in the power vacuum created by the coup Yeltsin and a popular uprising finished removing the Communists.

I guess this really is the interesting question-- what exactly was Gorbachev trying to do with the glasnost/perestroika thing? I seriously doubt his end goal was either what actually happened or the betterment of the Russian populace; it does seem more that his reforms got away from him than anything. But as for what his actual, specific personal motivations were, I've yet to see a serious evidence-grounded attempt to answer that question, nor am I sure where to look for one.

What the authority fear is ...

[FreeWizard]

The BBS community became so popular among those young elite, that it (or at least part of it) would become an unignorable force with knowledge, wealth as well as political need someday. Also some people pointed out that this might be a resurgence of the standpatters after the reformation of China's politics during the last year.

And the possible finale of the "tragedy" might be

[FreeWizard]

1: SMTH BBS become half open, only technical discussions is accessible to the public, other talks remain available only to students inside Tsinghua University and its schoolfellows.

2: SMTH BBS forks into 2 communities, one inside campus which is charged by the university and the other outside which may be possessed by an individual corporation.

Chomsky has spoken:

[sadomikeyism]

What China does is *immaterial*. What Hitler did is immaterial. What Pol Pot did is immaterial. The United States is doing these things NOW. That is ALL that matters. Any noise to the contrary is just to try to distract you.

The only reason it is immaterial is because you know those governments aren't going to do anything when you protest them. China doesn't give a damn what you think as they pass authorizations to use force against Taiwan, and as they rehearse an invasion of Taiwan with Russia. Idiots like you are going to be protesting the US the day that China waltzes into Taiwan, kills and rapes millions, and idiots like you are still going to apologize for it. Go back to your stalinist cooperatives, bub, we're not buying.

Oh, so tyranny is normal...

[sadomikeyism]

One more apologia: oh, yes, "its okay what China does because China is traditionally tyrannical"

Clue: Most of the world has traditionally been tyrannical. The point is that some people try to make it less tyrannical and some people apologize for the tyrants. Which side are YOU on?

To USA's advantage

[Anonymous Coward]

An oppressive China is to USA's advantage, especially that within the educated elite group in China.

I am sure more and more Chinese students want to come to the USA and stay because of whatever is happening in China. That's good to the American economy and also the stability of Asia-Pacific. China will never become powerful enough and a threaten to regional peace if its talents keep going out to other countries and leaving only those corrupted round-head ones in China.

China today is building another Great Wall in the internet age. It's quite effective so far not only domestically. From the replies to this thread, you can tell lots of Chinese, who have been out of China for quite a while, and who have been naturalized American citizens, are still blindly defending their China and living within their own Chinese way of thinking in North America. That's also to USA's advantage. They are skilled professionals or well educated researchers. However, their weakness of having their Chinese thinking will forever put themselves at good use in the USA, without much threaten to Amerian elite and white-collar jobs.

Leave China at its own weakness. A democratic China can only rise up to become a future challenger indeed to the USA.

MM

[Anonymous Coward]

'Flamebait' should be 'Funny'.

Meta-Modded accordingly.