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20 Years After Tiananmen, China Stifles Online Dissent
alphadogg writes with this snippet from Network World: "The Internet has brought new hope to reformists in China since the country crushed pro-democracy protests in the capital 20 years ago. But as dissidents have gone high-tech, the government in turn has worked to restrict free speech on the Internet, stifling threats to its rule that could grow online. China has stepped up monitoring of dissidents and Internet censorship ahead of June 4, when hundreds were killed in 1989 after Beijing sent soldiers to its central Tiananmen Square to disperse protestors. The authoritarian government wants to ensure that date and other sensitive anniversaries this year pass without public disturbances, observers say. In recent months, China has blocked YouTube and closed two blog hosting sites, bullog.cn and fatianxia.com, known for their liberal content."
Nobody here gets tortured in secret prisons for criticizing the government or practicing the wrong religion.
they live in a state of ignorance because of the governments cultural sandbox.
This statement is half right. The lessons of twentieth century totalitarianism is that what you call a "cultural sandbox" doesn't work. If so, a little perestoika wouldn't have been enough to cause the Soviet Union to fly apart. The truth was that the pablum of the state had never been internalized by the citizens. A thinking totalitarian would learn from this failure. You can't assume that because they're values are different from ours that they are too stupid to learn.
There are plenty of Chinese people who travel overseas for business or deal with foreigners. Each one of these is a potential vector for what the authorities would consider malignant ideas. I don't deny that the state acts like things like the Great Firewall are politically important. Perhaps they have their uses, but I actually think they may be as symptomatic as they are cause.
It's not enough to create a vacuum of information in peoples' heads. You have to put something there.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
An explosion of discontent is unlikely in China because the 20 years since Tiananmen have been dominated by incredible economic growth. It is hard to complain when your walette is getting fat. I realize the global economic downturn hit China somewhat, but it certainly didn't roll them back 20 years. (Not that this is specific to China; Americans never minded the Iraq war enough to do anything about it, even after they learned it was a sham, it was high gas prices and finally the economic collapse that made people revile the Bush presidency.) One implication of this is that the notion of political liberalization as a necessary byproduct of capitalism is not yet dead. The next time China's growth slows or reverses for a sustained period, then we will see if its new middle class has power to go with their wealth.
See, this is where your propaganda cool aid shows up. *Despite* claiming that the chinese have an unbiased view of the events and other countries, the bias still shows up in your views.
As an Indian, I can confirm that we are actually *taught* in school and colleges that India lost the Sino-Indian War. There is no delusion there. We lost. China won. As such, not even a school child in India thinks that we did not lose in any way. The Indian schoolbooks say that we won(or drew) every single war with Pakistan. They clearly say that India lost the war with China.
*Your* bias is clear however, when you stated your belief that some "hardcore Indian nationalist" do not believe India lost. I have yet to come across an Indian who believes so, specially when we get taught otherwise in schools.
From our version of history, Tibet was a territory conquered sometimes by Indian kings and sometimes by the Chinese(Since a unified India did not actually exist pre-mughal period). Britishers snatched it from the Chinese empire several centuries ago, and China simply sat quietly since it didn't think it was capable of taking on the British naval forces etc. at that point. Once the British decided to leave India, China evaluated the weaker Indian army and decided to stake its centuries old claim again. The Indian army which is still weaker than China and even then in its nascent stage, lost against the Chinese forces.
The Chinese Invasion came unexpected when negotiations were going on, and China was actually extending friendly overtures to India. This situation was the result of the idiocy of Nehru to attempt an alliance with China and at the same time antagonize China by giving refuge to the Dalai Lama(Which was obviously seen by China as interference in its internal affairs). Nevertheless, in background of the negotiations and Zhou Enlai claiming that there was no dispute between India and China, the unexpected attacks are seen by India as a stab in the back and betrayal of trust. So strong was the belief that India and China were allies, that Indian air force, which could have possibly succeeded in repelling the Chinese, was told to stand down.
The Indian perception of the Indo-sino war is that Nehru was an idiot to attempt an alliance with China, and that no matter how justified the Chinese claim over Tibet was, China/Zhou Enlai should have not pretended to "be friends to India", if China intended to invade over the territorial dispute.
And in that light, *of course* the Indians see Chinese as double-dealing backstabbers, but kindly stop claiming that any Indian claims that India won the Indo-Sino war. Indians do hate/mistrust the chinese in general, but they don't have any delusions about losing the Indo-Sino war.