China's New Internet Plan

eldavojohn writes "The internet in China is diverging rapidly from the state that the rest of the world enjoys it. Recent news of China's leader, Hu Jintao, has revealed a strategy to distort it even further. Jintao is tackling the issue his Communist party is having with the youth of China that are too young to remember Chairman Mao and the fanaticism the populace had for him. A strategy he is proposing is 'cleaning up' China's internet & lacing it with a little propaganda like the need to 'Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere' online. The meeting notes also declared that 'Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance.'"

Comments

Echoes of 1936

[Billosaur]

The Communist Party is preparing for a congress later this year that is set to give Hu another five-year term and open the way for him to choose eventual successors. In 2008, Beijing hosts the Olympic Games, when the party's economic achievements will be on display, along with its political and media controls.

The parallels to the Olympics of 1936 are kind of eerie -- then it was Hitler attempting to show off German might and industry, his neat and orderly Aryan society, and the superiority of the German race. Perhaps this is not as sinister, but it is certainly disturbing.

Re: Echoes of 1936

[Chandon Seldon]

We didn't even get the sort of regime change that happens every 4 or 8 years here.

In a real regime change, the creeping plague of bureaucracy is reset.

Re: Echoes of 1936

[tzhuge]

Try a Google search on:
"Racism in France". Eye-opening. The French strike me as pretty f'ing racist.
"Racism in Italy". Eye-opening. Italians strike me as pretty f'ing racist.
"Racism in USA". Eye-opening. Americans strike me as pretty f'ing racist.
"Racism in England". Eye-opening. The English strike me as pretty f'ing racist.
"Racism in Israel". Eye-opening. Jews strike me as pretty f'ing racist.

It seems that the hypocrisy of a comment that associates an entire ethnic group with racism is lost on /. mods (+3 Informative... HA).

Status Quo

[FooGoo]

This sounds like every other government/corporate plan to me so it's governance/business as usual. When will goverments and corps realize that the internet doesn't belong to them. It belongs to the users we just allow them to use it and profit from it if we so desire. If you can't compete on your own merits as a company, ideology, or political system this is not the place for you.
FG

Marketing is the key

[sharp-bang]

"Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere"

"Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance"

"Internet cultural units must conscientiously take on the responsibility of encouraging development of a system of core socialist values"

Boy, does that Politburo know how to turn a phrase. I know I'm inspired.

And what, exactly, is an "Internet cultural unit"?

Re:What can really be done about this?

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

We can bring democracy to them - works every time!

In the meantime

[iamacat]

US announced sweeping controls of radiowaves whereby an oligarchy of a dozen media companies will promptly fire anyone who contradicts the official culture by quoting a best selling rap singer.

Re:What can really be done about this?

[giorgiofr]

Erm, you're only stopping support for Chinese manufacturers, I'm afraid. Their gov't is totally unintersted in your actions. If what you're thinking about goes along the lines of stopping support for their industries so that the people will rebel against a gov't that, by alienating foreigners, takes their livelihood away: remember that China will shortly be a self-substaining market.
I believe there is no way to make the Chinese gov't change their mind. Only the peoples of China can choose to get rid of it, and apparently they're not really that keen on doing so.

Re:Great firewall of China

[sharp-bang]

Wikipedia is your friend YMMV. ;-)

I remember the part about circumventing blocking by ignoring the reset packets being publicized about a year ago. Dunno if it was ever fixed, though.

Re:This shows why I fear china

[Notquitecajun]

do not fear chinese. They are no different than anybody else.

Yes they are. They know Kung Fu.

Re:What can really be done about this?

[SQL Error]

Buy stuff made in Taiwan. There's plenty of it, it's cheap, usually good, and it'll piss off the Chinese.

Except that a growing number of Taiwanese companies have factories on the mainland these days...

Re:Fear is the Mind Killer

[Opportunist]

I understand you well. I love the USA. I love the country. I love the people. A good deal of my friends and people I care for live and work in the US, simply because they were born there and live there.

I hate the US government, I hate the way corporations grasp more and more power over the people, I hate the loss of liberties for fake security.

I love the country. I hate the way it's run.

You forget

[d3ac0n]

That communism isn't about competition. Communism is about eliminating all competing ideas and asserting absolute control over every aspect of life. The communist leaders understand perfectly well about the "competition of ideas". They also know they can't compete because communism is a failed ideology. Thusly they seek to control access to information and keep their people in the dark. It's typical totalitarianism.

(To the commie trolls: Yes, I KNOW that's not how communism and socialism is supposed to work, I've read both Marx and Mao. The problem is that in practice it cannot possibly work the way it's designers envisioned it because they didn't take human nature into account.)

Re:Fear is the Mind Killer

[SQL Error]

You're talking about a country where an elected leader can be sacked for getting head

Really? What country is that? Little tip: Clinton was impeached; he was not removed from office.

but an unelected leader can't be prised from the grip of power with a shoe-horn made of righteous indignation millions strong.

Again, a little tip: Bush was elected. Twice. You may not like it, but that's how it is, under the rules set out in the Constitution. Indignation, righteous or otherwise, is completely irrelevant. And come January 2009, he is gone.

Are you sure the contrast is as stark as you're suggesting?

More stark, if anything.

Ah, real life Abbott and Costello classics...

[Bazman]

A: Who is the Chinese President?
C: Yes.
A: Who?
C: I told you.
A: When?
C: Wen is the Premier.
A: When is the Premier what?
C: The Premier of China.
A: Who is the Premier?
C: No, Hu is the President!
A: That's what I wanna know!

and so on...

Re:Great firewall of China

[Dogtanian]

Wikipedia is your friend Wikipedia is not your friend. It's only pretending to be so that it can play with your shiny new Playstation 3.

Next week: We reveal that Digg doesn't really love you, and is just using you for sex.

Re:Fear is the Mind Killer

[rlp]

Let me add this little thought experiment:

Set-up two local sites: one in China, one in the US. In each, post articles denouncing the local country and call the country's leader every vile name known to man. In the US, you'll end up with a popular left-wing web site. In China, you'll get a knock on the door in the middle of the night and will never be heard from again.

Re:So the chinese can't read this article

[VendettaMF]

And yet I just read them all and am replying to them from Shenyang, Liaoning, China.

It ain't so cut and dried.

But who cares?

[hackingbear]

This may sound like a big trouble to you who are not in China.

But nowaday in China, no ordinary people pay any attention to these kind of useless propaganda any more. (Students may have to memorize this thing so they can pass the exams, but I can ensure you it has zero impact on their mental state otherwise, as it hasn't had any on mine when I was a student there in 1980's.)

Re:What can really be done about this?

[grumpyman]

. Only the peoples of China can choose to get rid of it, and apparently they're not really that keen on doing so.

How do you know that they're not really keen? You need another 1989 to prove that they're keen?

Human Nature

[Mateo_LeFou]

I don't think I'm a commie troll, but I think that at least part of your objection applies to capitalist systems as well.

If I were playing devil's advocate I might say "capitalism cannot possibly work the way its designers envisioned because they didn't take corporate nature into account." For example, there is a tendency in corporocracy to treat *everything as a transaction and *everything as property (see for example "intellectual property", the privatization of drinking water, etc).

I think the fact that corporations have co-opted our ostensibly democratic government so thoroughly is almost as serious an indictment of capitalism as the corrupted Party's betrayal of basic democratic principles in the Reddish parts of the world.

Just thinking aloud, really.

Re:Human Nature

[Red Flayer]

follows capitalism, in which people who work hard and make good choices are rewarded while the lazy and stupid are not.

That's not an accurate description of capitalism at all. Capitalism doesn't reward those who work hard; it rewards those who have money to work hard for them. Capitalism doesn't reward those who make good choices, it rewards those who make choices that are good within a restricted value set. That value set includes wealth accumulation, which is of debateable value. It's a tautology to say that capitalism rewards those who make good choices, since the choices you are referring to are only 'good' because of the capitalist system they are made in.

True communism, for example, rewards those who work hard and make good choices as well. How? Their society benefits, so the individual does as well. Marxist Communism also rewards those who work hard and make good choices -- the difference being that choices are made by a group, rather than an individual.

I don't think you'll ever be able to grasp the concept of Communism until you let go of the primacy of personal wealth accumulation. For example,

"class struggle" (code for wealth envy)

Class struggle isn't about wealth envy, it's about self-determinism. In a pure capitalist society, wealth outweighs or defines all other factors of self-determinism (education, access to influence, etc).

Sometimes the lazy and stupid wind up rich (think about the rich liberal living-on-trust-fund brat denizens of the Hamptons)

What about the rich conservative living-on-trust-fund brat denizens of Houston? Your bias is very clear, and subtracts from your logic.

Capitalism isn't designed to cure all problems. It's merely that which exists without government intervention,

Not so. Cooperation (the basis of communism) happens without government intervention -- capitalism is a system dependent upon a stable money supply, which does not exist without government interference. One could say that totalitarianism is what is most likely to happen without government intervention -- but then at what point is the totalitarian become the government?

government intervention, which always creates more problems than it solves (and it never solves anything).

Well, that's just wrong, as most absolutes are. It's a pithy saying based on faith that has few foundations in fact or in theory. Government intervention can solve the tragedy of the commons, for example. Sure, governments can (and often do!) intervene poorly, but that's a matter of execution, not of a theoretical impossibility of positive interference. If you reduce government to its most basic level (that of the family), would you still argue that interference by the decision-makers cannot solve problems?

By the way, did Marx ever define what a "class" was?

Yes, he did -- and the tendency for those not to have studied what he wrote is to not be able to make sense of his class distinctions, since they are not defined by wealth, as classes are defined under capitalism. Instead they are defined by their relationship to the means of production. Here's a primer for you, so you can get a basic view of how the "middle class" fits into Marxist theory.

I'm not a communist, but I think it's important to understand the communist point of view if I want to have a meaningful discussion of capitalism. It's also important to understand basic theories of government, and the differences between economic systems from political systems, as well as how they interrelate.