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China Allows Access to English Wikipedia
LinuxLefty writes "Reuters is reporting that Chinese authorities have lifted the ban on the English version of Wikipedia. The Chinese version of the site is still blocked, as are English-language versions of politically sensitive topics such as Tibet and Tiananmen Square. 'The move comes after International Olympic Committee (IOC) inspectors told Beijing organisers that the Internet must be open for the duration of the 2008 Olympics and that blocking it "would reflect very poorly" on the host country. China's government, keen to avoid sparking social discontent, keeps a tight watch over the media and often blocks or censors popular Web sites and forums where dissent may brew.'"
citation needed ;)
...and all that stuff.
Since it seems incredibly fitting, here is the Wikipedia article on Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China.
I'd be so happy if some protest group succeeds in stealing or putting out the torch. Giving the Chinese the Olympics is the worst awarding mistake since 1980.
Westerners in the Olympic Village will see something very open and free but it's all a put on. The Atlantic had a good article about this not long ago. The great firewall of China is extensive and fine grained enough to block individual page views at random. It's enough to eliminate public discussion on many topics and it's enough to round up potential subversives. Information in China is not free because people in China are not free.
I shared a hospital room with a Chinese kid once, about 10 years ago. He had got sick while travelling in Europe. It came up in conversation that he thought China was fantastic in every way, and when I asked him about the massacre at Tienamen Square, he said "What massacre?"
That was the first time I really understood just how amazing the Chinese governments control of information is.
That's already happening. Chinese living in the West, though they can see its freedoms, sometimes feel that the authoritarian model of their home country is the right way to do things. I've met plenty of Chinese immigrants in various countries who claim that China would fall apart if it weren't ruled with a strong hand, and Westerners just don't understand their society.
If the Chinese government keeps up this bullshit, people are going to call for boycotts of companies that advertise during the olympics, and that will reduce their revenue (because it will diminish the value of advertsising during hte olympics).
Even the Dalai Lama himself has firmly said that the Olympics should not be boycotted.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/18/2193461.htm
He has the most to lose if China's government gets more powerful.
I agree with him, I personally don't believe a boycott of the current olympics or advertisers is warranted in this case. The olympics is the one time every four years when athletes of all nations can come together. That serves more for global peace and understanding than petty quarreling, protests, and boycotts. Note, if there was serious shit going on I'll be the at the front of the protest line.
We need China to open, isolating them further will not be helpful. It's better the Chinese (people not govt.) be exposed to how people of other cultures are and vice versa.
First, you're thinking exactly like the Chinese government and that is rather disturbing. Second, it doesn't really matter what people try to edit Wikipedia, you're supposed to check facts not just blindly obey Wikipedia or SLashdot for that matter. Third, even if they did vandalize these pages it is quite likely that someone somewhere is going to notice and revert the page back.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
So: allow access to websites in a foreign language that most Chinese can't understand, for a period of - what - two weeks? And presumably keep a list of everyone who reads those websites? And then back to normal afterwards? Wow, the IOC is really helping to open up China to new ideas about freedom and democracy, isn't it?
America has exported large number of jobs to China. EU has started doing the same. That means that unless you live off this planet, that you are buying Chinese product. More importantly, you are supporting them, unless you are actively checking everything that you buy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I was in Beijing and Guangjou as a Westerner visiting those cities laster January (2007). I made a point of checking wikipedia and had no trouble viewing pages like the English Tiananamen square page. I'm not sure what the big deal is.
From what I hear censorship is more or less being policed socially with less and less DNS interference. Instead of blocking a domain, the police or party representative goes to the internet cafe where activity is taking place (that's easy to trace to an IP etc.) and just asks who has been visiting inappropriate pages.
Maybe I was spoiled as a Westerner with better internet. I dunno, $7USD a night for a hostel in both cities doesn't seem like they'd make a special exception.
I think there's a lot of hype and FUD surrounding the issue, and while it is indisputably an issue, the magnitude and severity is relatively overplayed I think.
Then again, maybe I was being tracked the whole time I was there by invisible Chinese spooks who intercepted and allowed my DNS requests on the fly and tracked my piddly 80211g over a few thousand miles in one day...
Yep, I have a Chinese friend who always speaks up for the government and everything as if it 'cannot be helped'. Once I asked them about Tiananmen square and they only knew that some students protested there, they didn't even know that anyone was killed! This is the kind of brainwashing and history erasing going on in China and it sickens me. If you control history you control the present..
They don't understand because the Chinese people are ignorant. They reject all contradications because they've been taught from birth that "this is the truth". Just like how a christian would reject evolution if they had be taught from birth that the earth is 6000 years old, they are no different.
You can't understand nonsense.
Not sure if you're being serious, sarcastic or ironic, but: last week the news was that the English versin of the BBC News website was unblocked, this week it's Wikipedia. And in case you still feel like you're suffering from deja vu, yes, we've been here before. I remember that last year, when I lived in China for three months, Wikipedia was blocked. However, soon after I left in June or maybe even a few days before my departure, the English version was unblocked. Apparently, it got blocked again in the intervening period. I am not sure whether the blocking and the unblocking of Wikipedia in China counts as news, but the unblocking of the BBC certainly was. Unfortunately, there's no telling how long access will continue to exist and as has been noted in many places, Chinese blocking software is by now sophisticated enough to block certain pages or reset the connection if certain words are found in the packets.
The average person in china has no more freedoms now than what they had 40 years ago EXCEPT that they are allowed to trade in the open. The chinese gov. is not opening up. Nor do they have ANY intention of doing so. The whole reason why they adapted capitalism had do with efficiencies. It had nothing to do with freedom. Freedoms will not start until the gov. starts holding itself accountable to the ppl. I have seen minimal accountablility coming from there. Xiaoyu was executed, but only because his actions caused a drop in exports to the west. He was held accountable ONLY because it hurt the underlying trade. But he had been doing a number of actions for a long time and the party was turning a blind eye to it, yet, they knew all about the bribes.
Freedom may come to china, but only if the citizens push it. Sadly, that will mean more 6-4's. But sometimes that is needed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
china is still playing all sorts of games. A quick example is CNSA claims that they are spending little money on their efforts. Yet, what is quietly missing in their reports is how many are currently employed in the space program. From quiet reports, USA is finding that they employee more ppl than NASA did in the late 60's (their pinnacle), and certainly more than RSA has. IOW, they try to downplay their space capabilities while at the same time, they are growing it. Fast.
Add on that, their military capability. It is very obvious that it is growing MUCH faster than china gov. claims. How much remains to be seen. The real problem is that China keeps their real funds secrets. If they reported how much in/out on taxes, as well as how much per department, then it would be easy to verify this. But that is kept secret (though they do report what some of the depts. use, but now way to balance or test this).
Based on your posting, I am guessing that you are married to a chinese, or are from china, but their actions speak louder than words. Look at W. Would you trust him? Hell no. Anybody that would trust him, cheney, or rove could only be an absolute idiot. But the same is true of Chinese Gov. They play more games with contracts and wording than even W. does. But what does that have to do with the chinese ppl? Absolutely nothing. These are seperate groups; ppl vs. their gov. And the reason is that their gov is foisted on them. Here in America, we the citizens are responsible for our gov, so sadly, they somewhat mirror us.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
However as a fact most Westerners do not understand very much about the, I think, quite complex structure of Chinese society. Even if you lived there it is not easy to get a feeling for what people ranging from the very poor countryside worker to the super rich entrepeneur really thinks about the government. Chinese people are not stupid, the have the same thoughts about their government as we have. Most people in China (except the very poor people) have access to the net and know how get past the firewall. Most people's English is much better then most people's Chinese in Europe or the states. They are able to read the news and follow the ongoing controversy.
It is so easy for us to say: ok we see that our system works in our country, so please do the same in China. But I think one also has to notice that the Chinese government does make efforts to steer the country in the right direction. The country is just so big and hard to control due to its extremly diverse ethnicity and the big gap between rich and poor. If things change from one day to the next, there will be a civil war and a lot of people will die and suffer. More than do right now because of the oppression by the government.
Chinese people know that they are oppressed and they are sick of it. The country is gonna change. But not tomorrow and not the day after. Not even because of the Olympic games. It takes time.
-- LP-Research
"inspectors told Beijing organisers that the Internet must be open for the duration of the 2008 Olympics and that blocking it "would reflect very poorly" on the host country"
Good to know the Olympic committee is all for standing up for human rights provided they're in town, and they're being paid lots of money, and those human rights only apply to people who are used to such freedoms in the first place. But seriously, if the Olympic committee gave a flying fuck about human rights they wouldn't have chosen China to host the Olympics.
I have nothing compelling to say
Well, from a Chinese perspective of view like me, Chinese themself sometimes benifit from blocking. So, let's image the U.S. government oneday blocks some enemy website. What methods could you ever think of doing to bypass that? Now in China nearly everyone of experianced Internet users knows at least 3 ways of bypassing GFW, that's a good skill, I think. Yes, my government is not perfect, they are doing insant things, but it makes people to be critical & skillful. On contract, I heard that Germany government & media is lying & blocking the major Chinese website sina.com.cn during the Tibet riot, and some German even Convinced that shit. I guess they have no idea how to bypass a Content-filter system. Hmm, everything has two sides. Wise people always learn from that.
Just opened it now, in Beijing. Seems to be working fine. But of course, the Tiananmen Square Protest page is blocked, still. That's the keyword filter, still chugging along as usual.
I know this is probably futile, but what the hell...
/. know how long it took for us to get these things? I don't know for certain, but I'm pretty sure it took generations. Part of the explanation is that those in power didn't always want it to happen, but another part is that democracy and political freedom are things that people need to learn, and it takes time. Just look to history to see how many times people have fought for freedom in a revolution, only to throw it away as soon as they've won. We in the West held on to it because of another revolution: the Enlightenment.
We in the West enjoy democracy and freedom. Well, "enjoy" may be an exaggeration, but we have it, sort of. Does anybody on
So how can we imagine that any country can just slap democracy and freedom down in the middle of society and say "Here you go, chaps, have fun"? China and the Chinese go through that phase now, what we went through 100+ years ago, and they are doing it a lot faster than we did, not least because of modern technology, but a lot of things can go wrong if the government just let it loose. Thankfully the Chinese government aren't about to let foreign pressure push them around.
What would happen if they did suddenly try to introduce full democracy and all the freedoms the Americans still only dream about? Just look at what happened in Russia: organised criminal gangs (the Russian mafia) grew very strong and tried take over, certain big companies grew extremely strong and tried to take over, the people in general suffered great need, and the government went in circles. Now they are returning to something closer to Soviet style strong-man government, because this is what the people seems to prefer.