Slashdot Mirror
China to Regulate Internet Map Publishing
hackingbear writes "After text, pictures, and videos, China starts regulating Internet map publishing (here is the google translation.) The government believes that Internet maps can represent the state's sovereignty and its political and diplomatic positions in the international community — and consequently, inaccurate maps could harm national interests and dignity, produce bad political influences, reveal national secrets and harm national security, in addition to harming consumer interests. So from now on, publishing maps would require approval and (yet another) license from the state survey bureau. That means Google, Yahoo, etc., need to remove China from the map; or maybe they just pay up some officials and their agents to acquire yet another license. And our newest 80Gbps DPI monsters need to be upgraded to identify maps together with porn."
priceless!
Can a country do this? Why are on-line maps different from printed maps? Seems a bit unlikely to me.
As Google maps are satellite based, how inaccurate can they be?
simon
Does Google need to pay to use the map that China produced, or to even show the country on a map that anyone produced? Are they licensing the map itself, or the representation of China's IP of the shape and layout of the country itself? If it's the latter, that's just... ill.
What happens if they just ignore their weirdo regulations and continue to publish the maps? How about just not in China?
Now how am I supposed to get from my house to Shanghai? I need those directions dammit.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
This has been happening for a while, but in different forms.
I would have to guess that they are talking about maps that are originating in China, and not maps served from outside of the country.
In the past, maps manufactured for a product such as a toy globe would need to pass similar scrutiny. So, you couldn't get the good exported if the cultural board didn't agree with the map that you were using.
I wish I had tracked this a little more closely, but for a couple of decades ordinary maps of Kentucky in atlases like Rand McNally and Hammond did not indicate the existence of the city of Fort Knox, despite showing far smaller cities.
It was actually a little bit exciting to see the map in Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger, showing the United States Bullion Depository located at the intersection of Bullion Boulevard and Gold Vault Road. In those days before Wikipedia and Google Earth, this gave at least one reader frisson of forbidden information. I wondered whether Fleming would be the target of any mysterious reprisals for publishing it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Just wanted to mention that the OP neglected to put "inaccurate maps" in quotes, or at least italicized.
Whale
It's nice to see that the Chinese Government have learned from their western counterparts that anything you do in the name of "protecting consumer interests" becomes allowable. Their next lesson: "think of the children".
Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but it looks to me like the intention of this is to prevent Chinese citizens from seeing any map that recognises Taiwan or Tibet. Any one remember Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri? - Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Sad, but unsurprising.
-- Note to Mods: There is a good reason there's no "-1 Disagree" option. --
If people get used to seeing "The Republic of Taiwan" instead of the "Shitty, Upstart Province of Formosa (or China's name for it) that Dares Act Independent," then that would give people the expectation that Taiwan is a sovereign country. If China goes to war, then it's not to reclaim a break-away province that has been acting like a renegade, but rather just another conquest like Iraq on Kuwait.
Maps do have real political value behind them. There are a lot of people in Mexico that would love to see the reconquista of the Southwest, and the Mexican government has said in the past that expanding its territory back into the original territory is its goal. That's actually why the map that Absolut did in their advertising campaign was so controversial in the U.S.
A much better option than going along with what China wants them to publish. Sometimes the best course is to let jackasses make jackasses of themselves.
rj
Well, China can always shoot down your sattellite, but that might be construed as a hostile act.
If Google has any actual people in China, those people could be subject to arrest or intimidation if they don't comply.
Remember, in China (and, increasingly more places), the truth is what they tell you it is. Their view on how information is handed out is a little different than ours.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Basically, they do not want any maps to be available on the Net to their own people (or anyone else, but that is impossible) which contain such counter-revolutionary ideas such as an independent Taiwan(even if only de facto).
They aren't doing it more, they're just being caught doing it more often.
CCTV's English language service ran this article a couple of months back: http://www.cctv.com/english/20080410/101774.shtml
They want to kinda wall themselves from the world but still be part of it.
If we had governments representing people, then the UN would would have told China to where to go a long time ago and China would have become something Cuba could laugh at.
But instead, we have governments representing corporations. (we elect them but the corps control them) To ignore china because of their fascist ways is not good for the corporate bottom line and the CEO's annual bonus. So the corps will bend and jump through hoops until they control China as well. When that happens, we will have become Star Trek's Ferengi race. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi)
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
A country can even shoot people for making maps disapproved by the ruling regime (if they can obtain jurisdiction). That's sovereignty for you! How far will Google go in its quest for the almighty dollar (or yuan, or whatever)?
remove them from all globes too, have them made in China
This link has more info: http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2008-03-25/21362099485.shtml
Google licensed PRC geographic data from Beijing United Map Technology Limited (just a guess translation) who has a electronic map service license from the National Survey Department (apparently the prime driver for the regulatory initiative). The reporter speculates that the regulatory initiave may be related to the competition between Beijing United Map Technology with its duopoly competitior, Beijing Map Advanced Technology.
The official reasons given by the Deputy Director of the National Survey Department are:
1. Inaccurate boundaries show parts of PRC as soil of other nations
2. Omission of south sea islands (disputed islands with Japan)
3. Omission of Taiwan or labeling of Taiwan as independent
4. Inaccurate boundaries between administrative regions and dissemination of important geographical data
5. Annotation of sensitive, nonpublic, or national security information on the map.
(Think of Dick Cheney's house...)
Part of Google's objection is that there are no clear laws pertaining to online maps in PRC. Thus the regulators are not acting on a solid foundation. There remains wide spread confuson on what exactly is required by these regulations.
As for Google's choices, they are actively protesting this initiative. But unless they prevail or pull out of China they would be subjected to their laws and likely to adapt to publishing only authorized versions of PRC maps.
It will push the artificial intelligence field of image recognition to unthinkable heights.
Blind people around the world should praise China for their invaluable help.
If they can find China in any way of map representation it should surely be easy to discern among different types of porn.
From a purely algorithmical point of view, of course.
I am surprised it took them so long to make this decision and I expect other countries to do the same. Maps have historically been used by explorers and the military so why would any country accept that potential enemies gain access to that kind of information?
"On this spot in 1989, nothing happened".
Argentina streets aren't in Google maps either. I've heard tons of versions regarding why practically every southamerican country but Argentina don't show up there. Including, and this one came from a Google employee, that the military/goverment didn't want to give "sensitive" information (Read: The bribe wasn't good enough). So they were looking for third party mapping companies to buy the data from (Read: Unhappy employee)
MSN Live has streets but it seems they've used very old data as they show streets that don't exist so don't rely on them too much.
Don't know about Yahoo.
...the US gov would just get one of the ministers in sweden to lean on their mate in the police force and raid their offices there.And thereby show that the US IS as bad as china and that, yes, other countries DO tell other companies what to do with online maps. The US government has problems, but can somebody explain to me why stories that have absolutely nothing to do with the US government still attract US gov flames? This story is about China's oppression and mentions the fact that it may have an impact on a couple of US businesses. How is the US government involved any more than Holland's or France's? Yes, most of Google's censored map areas are in the US, but other countries have made similar requests and had them granted. I'm sure China could too. But that's a whole different ball game than requiring licensing and approval for posting maps...
Ugh - Maybe I should just filter out ACs...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Tibet has always been part of China. Just as Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Best Slashdot Co
...to give these fuckers a lesson in just how slippery and hard to control the truth can be.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
There's already some coverage of China in openstreetmap.org (which is like Wikipedia for maps). For example, here's Shanghai:
http://openstreetmap.org/?lat=31.226&lon=121.5487&zoom=12&layers=B0FT
The coverage is only going to improve. Already in other countries, many cities are nearing completion. You can't close the mapping door after the GPS trace has bolted.
Paid Q&A/Research
The South China Sea all the way to Malaysia and Philippines as being a part of China. Needless to say, the map treats all other seas, gulfs, and bays on the globe as being international waters.
Chinese culture seems to me to still be in the 19th century in many regards, and unable to engage in self-criticism. I've never met a Chinese person who could admit opposing points in relation to Tibet for example, notwithstanding that these people are all intelligent and decent in other regards.
I'd be able to feel more sorry for Tibet if the exiled government wasn't stuck in the middle ages though.
It ended up in part, causing a war with India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino_indian_war
A lot of China's posturing and paranoia seems to almost make sense if you look at the history of how they have been treated by other nations.
So let me get this straight. Your idea of promoting an encouraging openness (which you and I agree is a good thing) is by completely shutting down China.
That doesn't make much sense to me. I think if you spent even 20 minutes reading about Chinese history in the last century you would be far less ignorant of world affairs and specifically Chinese affairs. I am in no way defending totalitarianism or censorship. I just want to point out how rediculous your "solution" sounds.
If you actually load up wikipedia and read for 20 minutes you might find out about the enormous amounts of strife China as a nation has endured over the last 150 years. Then you would see how it has only been 30 years since the end of the Cultural revolution, and just how much the nation has turned around in the blink of an eye.
Now you advocate destroying 30 years of progress? You want 1.3 billion people to go back to living in abject poverty (even though hundreds of millions are still in abject poverty). All because they draw their maps a little differently from the way we do? You would rather force them into submission than help them grow?
Fuck China? Fuck you.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
While I understand your sentiment, there was a Congressional hearing and at least one bill about this very situation of US businesses abiding by foreign laws. Specifically internet companies in China.
An essential question here is how does national law work with internet companies who are global in reach. How do we deal with uplifting people in totalitarian regimes? Do we let them fend for themselves, or do we give them the same tools which have boosted our freedom? Even if they are crippled by local laws.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
Yes there was. But, if we're talking about the same bill, the US was taking steps to penalize US companies for aiding these oppressive regimes. Looking at those kind of measures is exciting and should be applauded, not flamed.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
You see, the corporations finance them, and then they goes out... and the corporations sit there in their... in their corporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all corporation-y... and they make money.
Might this have something to do with the fact that China just had a large earthquake and in usual fashion they are trying to control the news of it. They essentially want to make such events seem very minor, and make it look to foreign eyes that they recover from such disasters in almost no time at all.
And no it's probably not to just cover this one earthquake's damage, but really to cover news of future floods, quakes, fires, etc from outside eyes.
Ahh... but if we remove China from the map, we can actually have an excuse to put "Here, thar be dragons" on the map!
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
It seems to me that we should deliberately publish maps of China and its neighbors with the borders and names FUBARed in order to piss off the powers that be in China. Like Taiwan and Tibet especially. Also I think there are a few small islands in the Philippines that China is trying to bully onto their map. When China creates this opportunity to abuse their wishes take advantage.
People who wanting to breathe in and out will need to take permits from Secretariat of Breathe-in and from Secretariat of Breathe-Out respectively.
Plans for regulations on Bodily Biological Gas Emissions by the Ministry of Natural Gas Resources are told to be underway, and citizens are urged to get their butt sizes measured at the nearest municipal authority.
Read radical news here
this starts off as the most insightful thing I've ever seen you post, focusing on humanity in general. what's with the end focusing, again, on chinese and arabs?
Secondly, no matter whether the world likes it or not, ANY international politics have to do with the US government. With great power comes great responsibility. Pair this up with the laws some politicians have been trying to pass in the US (the ones that make it illegal for US-based international corporations to break US law in other countries of operation), and it has everything to do with the US government.
All of this was already conflated in the original topic; if it had just been about nameless companies needing a license to post maps of Chinese-held territories in order for them to operate in China, THEN this would have nothing (or not much) to do with the US government.
I don't know who the hell modded you down as a troll, as your post is possibly the one most deserving of Insightful that I have ever seen.
Slashdot is a pretty cool guy eh posts dupes and doesn't afraid of anything.
because my post wasn't outwardly antiwestern, but instead criticized china and the islamic world, it got modded down
even though i specifically mentioned the usa and the uk as falling for blind pride, and even though what i say is equally applicable to anything the west has done or is doing
the take home lesson is that some people think that only statements that criticize the west are deserving of being modded up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Worse per capita" is just another way of saying the individual lives of Chinese students marching for their freedom was worth less than brainwashed cultists because there are more Chinese than Americans.
No, it's a way of saying that the number of people killed at Waco were a higher percentage of their country's population than the number of people killed at T. Square.
And since when does being "brainwashed" (i.e. believing something YOU don't) make someone's life less valuable? (But if it did I'm sure the Chinese government officials would have been happy to claim that the T. Square protesters had been brainwashed as well.)
I guess the students had a cache of modified semiautomatic weapons as well.
Given that:
a) members of the church had a LICENSE to make such modifications,
b) that the government didn't produce such a cache (though one of the things they DID produce and claim was a silencer turned out to be a spent incendiary teargas grenade of the type that they claimed they hadn't fired into the soon-to-burn building), and
c) the church members had less than half the guns per capita than the average for Texans
I fail to see your point.
It was LEGAL for them to have what they had.
It was MORAL, according to their religion, to have what they had and to use it to defend themselves against life-threatening attacks.
I also never heard they were holding people in their compound against their will.
I have never heard any evidence, or even serious allegations, that the Davidians were doing that, either. It appears that the only people holding anyone there against their will were the "jackbooted thugs" surrounding the community.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It was actually a little bit exciting to see the map in Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger, showing the United States Bullion Depository located at the intersection of Bullion Boulevard and Gold Vault Road. In those days before Wikipedia and Google Earth, this gave at least one reader frisson of forbidden information. I wondered whether Fleming would be the target of any mysterious reprisals for publishing it.
Given that Fleming (along with Eric Frank Russel) was in the British Military Intelligence during WWII and loosely based his fiction on his experiences there, I doubt that the US spook community would take reprisals against such an honored member of their fraternity (and potentially create a major international incident) over such a minor issue as leaking an open secret in an adventure story.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If China is so determined to regulate what goes into the maps then just remove them. That way they can't complain about it. Just leave a blank area with a not available on picture day caption.
An old tradition for unmapped, hard to get to, areas was to label them with rumors, like "Here there be Dragons". Cartographer-speak for "This page intentionally left blank."
Given China's traditions about dragons it seems appropriate.
(Unfortunately, they might like it.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
dude, what's with the N bomb? was that necessary?
This is my supposition based on talking (BJ residents) and listening (BBC) to people in BJ at the time. While I can't claim it's fact, it could be and it's at least plausible (IMO).
I've seen (BBC) video footage of protesters burning soldiers alive.
What isn't plausible to me is that the army opened fire on defenceless students.
Max.
Max.
Because it's easy, fun, and safe to point the finger at the U.S. A big fat ripe target that doesn't protest around the whole world when their feelings get hurt.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
You're mostly correct there. However, there is no reason to not criticise China. You should notice that their is a hell of a lot of criticism on this site directed at the US as well (often by US citizens). So it's not really unfair discrimination.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
you should notice the only things modded up to 4 or 5 are for china-bashing and proclaim the need to isolate them. honestly, should anything that says "fuck china" be modded up? ever?
in other words, what gets promoted on this site is not measured criticism, but knee-jerk childishness.
notice that my post got modded DOWN to 0.
Well, yes, there is no reason to say fuck [insert country here]. And as you said, every country has problems; it may seem unfortunate for you that currently people are focussed on China's problems, but they'll move on... Anyway, every country should accept criticism and try and learn from it, rather than denying it or fighting back.
People don't hate China in particular, there's just been a lot of news about it recently, a lot of it due to the Olympics, and that's natural. People aren't going to read the 'Fuck China' posts and suddenly agree with it. In fact, I'd say more people know more about China than ever before, and of course you're going to have numb-nuts being idiots.
Anyway, as a Christian, I get my fair share of bashing on Slashdot too. It's just something everyone has to get used to.
I don't think this site has a particular anti-China bias, it's also anti-Christian, anti-corporation, anti-Microsoft, etc. As I said, the world's focus is currently on China, so there will be more news, and bad news is always more interesting than good news. For a good reason. By pointing out bad things, we all get an opportunity to make a start towards fixing it, one action at a time.
Also, this story is about China, so you should expect things about China, and you can't expect people to go around saying lots of nice things about China, because that just isn't interesting.
I'm sure smart people are aware of a lot of good things about China. E.g. quick to react to the disaster in Sichuan, putting money towards development projects in the Pacific, making sure that the population is being fed, working hard to create more jobs, and so on.
But the point is there isn't much use in talking about good things, it's only the bad things that need to be fixed :-)
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
you're trying equate being christian on slashdot to being a racial minority? really?
it's apologist to lump the recent vitriol for china in with even the anti-microsoft hyperbole. the hatred voiced for china is far more irrational and that irrationality is far more rewarded than any of the examples you mention.
imho, the two primary contributors to this are fear and media representation. everyone seems to be worried about jobs going to china. though manufacturing has been streaming there for years, more and more, you see "soft" jobs getting shipped there too. because of this fear, people lash out and china, forgetting their own laziness and education-slashing elected officials deserve some blame.
media representation of chinese (and asians in general) is also troublesome. time after time, asians are neither dominant nor strong (unless you count the asian equivalent of blaxploitation, martial arts movies). the men are often portrayed as weaker than women of other races and the women adhere to the dragon lady/lotus flower dichotomy. just about every study of media representation of asians bears this pattern out. as a result, people feel it's okay to bully asians. there are countless examples of this before the recent spate of china-bashing, sarah silverman being the most notorious in recent memory.
the point is there isn't much use in talking about generalities that apply weakly (christianity, corporations, etc), it's only the generalities that apply strongly (fear, representation, etc) that need to be fixed.
You're obviously blind. There is a lot of virulent language against Christianity on Slashdot. I don't go and sulk in a corner or get angry because my feelings got hurt. Be a man and bear it. Or do you think my feelings as a Christian matter less than your feelings as a Chinese?
I am lead to deduce that the reason you think it is especially unfair when directed towards the Chinese government (as opposed to US/French etc.) is because you think of your race as being superior. Well get of your high horse. My Christian grouping as just as good in my opinion as your Chinese grouping. You are not a better or worse person than me, so don't think like that.
It is no less fair to bash Chinese than it is to bash Christians, or Muslims, or French or whatever. Bashing any group is wrong, and it is wrong to think one group is less or more deserving than another.
The real reason people bully any other group is because they fear that group rising above them. Take it as a compliment.
You also seem to think that China is extra-special and alone being incorrectly portrayed in media. Obviously you've never seen a Disney film where Arabs are portrayed as rats (dirty and sly), whereas Americans are portrayed as ducks (cute and playful). Or have you noticed that in American films, the evil characters very often have British accents. Nor have you noticed the portrayal of Americans in British films as being loud, crude and a bit thick in the noggin. Nor have you noticed the portrayal in Chinese films of Japanese being cowards and bad at fighting. Nor the portrayal of Russians, in Anglo/US films, being extremely violent.
If you are so ethnocentric that you think the injustices of the world are focussed on you, and that that is the most unfair thing, then maybe you should learn to start thinking about others.
I assume that Chinese forums never say anything bad about the West, or Western media, or Western people? Oh wait!
And to moot your point, most of the criticism on Slashdot is directed at the Chinese government, not the Chinese people. You should learn to make that distinction. People in the West often have a low regard for governments in general, so its no surprise they don't like the Chinese one either.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
no christian bashing (at least on slashdot) has ever compared to the china bashing we're seeing now. you may feel differently because you are a christian. i am neither a citizen of china nor part of its government, so i will claim higher objectivity on this one.
i've noticed everything you mention about portrayal, but you really are reaching if you think the mere existence of unfair portrayal of others means that it isn't more pronounced for asians. any media representation class or text book will back me up on this. and don't forget that "asians" (at least in my discussion) includes many arabs.
my ethnicity has no bearing on this discussion any more than your religion.
the distinction between a government and its people is an academic one. i'm explaining the deep-rooted feelings of one culture for another. the standard "the people must rise" makes no difference if the people agree with the government. by attacking the government, you are attacking the people who support it. maybe they have their reasons for supporting it.
also, by saying that chinese forums never say anything bad about the west, you are conversely implicating slashdot as non-chinese. i disagree with that.
I was being sarcastic; there has been a lot of USA/France/CNN bashing on Chinese message boards lately, it's very much a two way street.
As for my implication, I've never noticed people having discussions on Slashdot in Chinese. I'd say the vast majority of people here are from western countries. I'd call that non-Chinese. There are Chinese people on here, but they are a very small minority, and also from the elite that can read/write English very well, which to be honest is not a typical representation of a Chinese person. Would you call Slashdot Chinese?
Anyway, I agreed with you that it's silly to start calling for boycotts/isolation etc. or to say that the people in said country are stupid. But I can't see anything wrong with having something against any particular government.
It is mostly the rich and well educated people here that support the government. Out in the countryside, there are many many people who are displeased but can do nothing.
the distinction between a government and its people is an academic one. i'm explaining the deep-rooted feelings of one culture for another. the standard "the people must rise" makes no difference if the people agree with the government. by attacking the government, you are attacking the people who support it. maybe they have their reasons for supporting it.So that brings about a paradox. If I attack my government (which I do on a constant basis), am I attacking myself, my friends and my family?
So do you think people are wrong to bash the Chinese government at all? If you think that's the case then you'd be a hypocrite to criticise anything the American/British governments do. Say, for instance, installing way too many CCTVs, allowing people to be sued for thousands of dollars for downloading a few songs, etc. I maintain my right to criticise any government for anything it does.
If people get offended by me attacking their government, then they are just grabbing the wrong end of the stick. And I'm not defending the people calling for embargoes, or isolation, or wars or whatever other unjustified invective; but I have a right to make statements like "The Chinese government is wrong to censor foreign news sources" or "I disagree that China has any right to claim land currently under the control of India". Where by "China" I mean the Chinese government.
It would be a very dangerous world if people stopped criticising governmental wrongdoings just for the sake of appeasing people with an overdeveloped sense of nationalism.
By extension, you're saying that if I criticise the Dear Leader for not feeding the people in North Korea, I am in turn criticising the people who are not being fed? So if I attack Kim Jeong Il in order to support the hungry, I am in turn attacking the hungry? That's absurd.
The physical distinction between a government and it's subjects is very real. Tying the two together would be the purely academic exercise, which doesn't make it true. The government can do a lot of things that the 'people' can't do, i.e. arrest people, make laws, organise a war with another country, etc. Any love that one has for a government is artificial and silly.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have governments, they are very necessary to keep order, and protect the people, the economy and so forth, but we are all better off if the government does it's job better, and we should all be allowed the right to criticise them in order to help attain improvements.
People in China do not openly criticise the government, and those who do are harassed at varying degrees. Of the people who do wish to criticise, fear stops them doing it in public.
I still can't understand why you would have me not criticise the Chinese government. Just because there are a lot of governments that are worse, the PRC government is not absolved of unjustified behaviour.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
well, first off i want to thank you for coming back from personal attacks. it's not often on public message boards that things start down that path and come back from it.
i agree with pretty much everything you say. there are a few subtle nuanced differences, which i outline below, but for the most part i think we agree.
the distinction i was making with slashdot being chinese is simply that there often is a diverse set of chinese perspectives on slashdot (albeit not modded up to 4 or 5).
it is expected and responsible that people criticise all governments, particularly their own. however, when the criticism ends up being all invective (to borrow your term) and that invective results in a mob mentality where there's essentially a free-for-all devoid of rational thought, something else is going on. it's hard to get that kind of reaction unless you've hit a nerve of some kind or another.
my original post was intended to show that we've reached that point with china, both on slashdot and in the general media.
my last two posts were just trying ferret out why. to analyze that, you have to look at cross-cultural attitudes and, unfortunately, stereotypes and ignorance. in this context, separating a people from their government becomes academic. if one can freely attack a people because of his/her attitude towards them and their culture, s/he will certainly attack their government even more freely. in other words, i think it's now open season on the chinese government because it's been open season on asian people (again, i include much of the middle east here) for some time.
to clarify my point on media representation, i thought up the following exercise. if you make a 3d plot, you can quite clearly illustrate the biases. put on the x-axis a strength spectrum (-1 for weak, 1 for strong), on the y-axis a goodness spectrum (-1 for evil, 1 for good). if you prefer, the y-axis could be antagonist/protagonist instead of good/evil. on the z-axis, plot the frequency that you see characters with those traits in western (or perhaps more appropriately, northwestern, as south america and africa are rarely included in "western") entertainment. if you make that plot for non-asians, you'll find a reasonable frequency in the upper-right quadrant (strong, good). the plot for asians is, in comparison, quite small.