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

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!

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: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

[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: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.

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.