Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Blogger Chosen As Head of Investigation
Lew Perin writes "China hasn't developed much of a reputation for government transparency. And in Yunnan province, the case of a guy who died in police custody was starting to look like a cover up. But then the provincial government startled everyone by choosing a prominent local blogger to head the official investigation into the death. 'The unorthodox move to make popular bloggers heads of an investigation committee is a tacit admission by the Yunnan government of the power of the internet — especially blogs — in shaping Chinese public opinion. It also belies the widespread suspicion of the official version of Li's death.'"
I'm pretty impressed by this. It seems to me that Western mainstream media still regards bloggers (I'm not talking about journalists who happen to have blogs, I'm talking about pure bloggers) as some kind of group of fringe weirdos.
I'm still waiting to see a good argument that traditional journalists are still necessary, and cannot be completely replaced by enthusiastic amateur bloggers and a good aggregation service. I'm not saying such an argument does not exist, but I'm still waiting to see it.
Also, see this Slashdot thread.
People would trust their government a lot more in general if government officials were held accountable for everything like the general public. God knows we'd have very few lawsuits against police departments in the U.S. if police departments were the first ones on the case to reprimand employees for breaking the law. The main reason why China's government needs so much secrecy is the rampant corruption, brutality and criminality in its ranks.
They are still a long way from "Government 2.0," which is starting to catch on here in the U.S.
And even in the U.S., we are still quite a long way from true "open source governance."
I'm interested enough in China to have learned Mandarin and visited several times.
My impression is that central govt is genuinely trying to implement reforms, particularly in the legal system. I don't think they are interested in human rights but they understand the importance of uncorrupt institutions to prosperity.
However, these reforms are usually stymied by the local corruption they are trying to root out. China is a big place.
This effort with the blogger may well be genuine. It may well come to nothing.
My 2 cents.
Having also spent some time in China I completely agree with you. From what I've seen coming out from the central government they are really trying to improve things, but the local government branches are very corrupt. My favourite examples are the illegal brothels that just pay off police and others. You can often seen a police office situated right next to a brothel in some areas. Now this doesn't mean that I'm against prostition, I just think it's a simple example of the corruption there.
I don't think they are interested in human rights but they understand the importance of uncorrupt institutions to prosperity.
I think you are probably wrong there. For one thing, Communism is, despite what we've all been told over and over, about the rights of common people; go and look it up if you care. They are not the same set of rights that people in the US subscribe to, but "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" was, after all, something drawn up by the UN just after WWII - ie by the US, UK and France, mostly, and consequently it reflects values that are very Eurocentric and very Capitalistic.
Another thing is that people far too often assume that politicians in general are completely void of any sort of idealism and higher principles, which I think is manifestly untrue - even in America. Wasn't the problem with the Bush administration that they were too idealistic - that their belief in their ideology overruled their grasp of reality? A pragmatic leader would never have thrown the country into a war in Iraq or given gigantic tax cuts to the richest in the belief that this would somehow be good for everybody, in spite of what common sense and a hundred years of experience tells us.
In fact, I think politicians in general are more likely to be idealists than the average person. It's just that in the US, their ideology is very often some twisted version of fundamentalist Christianity or Ultra-Capitalism, whereas in China they are more likely to base their ideals on Communism - which is, when you think about it, a version of Humanism. To me, what makes the big difference is whether you believe your ideals are more important than people's lives and reality in general; and as far as I can see, the current Chinese leaders believe more in reality than in ideals. Which is good.