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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."
I wonder how feasible it would be for the Internet crowd to "make" June 4 the unofficial day of the free speech, by means of posting some small banner or a short comment on thousands of websites on that day, to the extent that it would get media coverage, and then repeating it every year on the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. I guess one could do that one one's personal blog, I don't know about a personal page at a university or other such places since it would probably violate some regulations. Surely, someone who's a lawyer could advise... obviously, Chinese citizens wouldn't notice, but the rest of the world might, including those who came from China to study and may be oblivious of the fact that the rest of the world considers Chinese government's policies and actions morally questionable.
I share your surprise - considering all the backlash that the various Western pre-Olympic protests against China and/or their actions saw from regular Chinese people, I was beginning to get the impression that many of them are happy enough with the state of affairs to actively defend it, so they certainly wouldn't challenge it. In that context I wouldn't have thought that information like this was that much of a risk any more.
Obviously the protests may present a skewed perspective from both sides, but to me it looks like the government are sitting pretty solidly. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe they're just so used to suppressing speech that they either don't think to stop or don't want to risk it in view of the small amount of international praise they stand to gain.
I wonder what the people of China would choose, politically speaking, if the people were given the option?
[Shrug] It took many years before China admitted the great depths of mistakes made many decades ago, and yet the main guy responsible is still revered and there's still a lot of glossing over of the real effects (e.g., tens of millions of deaths). Denial of one's mistakes is naturally popular. Why wouldn't they continue the tradition? Maybe they'll be ready to face the reality of the massacre at Tiananmen Square in a few more decades.
...but that won't prevent Chinese students living abroad from getting the point. I personally know a number of very smart Chinese Ph.D. students who honestly believe that everything the Chinese government does is right and has always been right because they have been told so back home, and political correctness in U.S. prevents people from going anywhere near such subjects at school or in the workplace.
'The Chinese people support the CCP'
It is not so straightforward as this. There is plenty of discontent. Corrupt officials and police are hated. The CCP do a good job of getting the glory of the Chinese people's fervent nationalistic feeling. Control of the media makes this not too difficult a task.
'This government has existed for decades because a majority of Chinese support it'
Not really - it has existed by control, through force, fear and a growing economy. There is no way of testing how many people actually support the government.
'By contrast, in one day of 1989 June, about 1 million people gathered in Tiananmen Square to demand the creation of a Western democracy'
Wrong on a number of details. The gathering happened throughout the preceding 6 weeks, at least. Many, many more gathered in major cities throughout China at the same time. (I witnessed demonstrations in May 1989 in Beijing,Shanghai,Wuhan,Chongqing, Chengdu).
There was no 'demand for the creation of a Western democracy' (ok - individuals might have said this, but no definite concept demanded). The people were fed up with the system, lack of opportunity, corruption - it was an outpouring of many grievances.
However, I suppose your point is that, if the people were fed up then they could have/should have overthrown the government. The fact they didn't is more to do with the fact that China is a big place, with a mix of cultures,languages, poor communication (especially in 1989), with no environment for establishing a concerted opposition. You cannot infer that, because the people did not overthrow the government, the people support it.
(signed: a long term foreign resident of China)
I for full heartily support this idea. I've started by registering freespeechday.com. If anyone would like to help, please send me an email or drop at note on this forum.
See, the issue lies not in knowing that certain events have taken place, but in being able to reflect on them, question them, interpret and speak freely about them. Chinese government, through its aggressive propaganda, created the situation where everything is linked this way or another to national pride. Even from your response it is sort of evident that you are being defensive, as if the reflection on the past events were to insult or otherwise discredit the entire Chinese nation. And this is precisely the issue. Many intelligent Chinese I had met seem completely unable to separate discussion of history and infamous past events from the matter of national pride. One person I tried to speak to about Tibet denied it fiercely to the point she almost cried. This sort of reaction is hardly normal. Questioning the actions of the Chinese government and bringing up the infamous events in history is treated by some as a personal attack at a deep emotional level. Surely, many Americans are also like that; the difference is that those Americans choose to be like that despite the fact they live in a free society, whereas for people who were born in China this may not be a matter of choice. If you think anyone here is trying to blame or discredit the Chinese, you are deeply confused; everyone here is rather sympathetic with your fellow citizens. The question is whether the Chinese raised in the communist propaganda can handle the criticism of their own government without taking it at the personal level and getting all emotional and defensive.