Slashdot Mirror
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."
It's still inconvenient for the Chinese government that this not be seen by the public? Although not easy to pull off, perhaps there should be some plans to bring this issue up world wide when it's not around the anniversary. Catch the Chinese authorities off-guard.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
Not as epic as her book Shock Doctrine but it is a must read for any tech with a conscience.
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2008/05/chinas-all-seeing-eye
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
secrecy.
It isn't ubiquitous surveillance that does the trick, it's ubiquitous potential surveillance. Likewise iron fisted rule is crude and inefficient. The true art is to rule without rules. China has high sounding and extremely vague legal principles. Put the two together and you are never (a) sure if you are not being watched nor (b) if what you are doing is legal.
When you've achieved this, you don't need Big Brother. Every citizen is his own Big Brother.
You almost have to admire this system. It is tyranny, perfected.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The scale of censorship is much smaller. The US has minor problems with censorship. The US has not, for example, blocked major news sites. Nor has it blocked Wikipedia and made its own version that the government likes. The comparison is simply not accurate.
Internet censorship is becoming more severe in much of the Western world. Great Britain and Australia are both engaging in serious, active censorship. However, even then the level is tiny compared to that of China.
Nobody here gets tortured in secret prisons for criticizing the government or practicing the wrong religion.
This is one of the countries that people want to let control DNS.
When the overwhelming majority of people in a nation truly want democracy and human rights, the nation quickly and peacefully transforms into a liberal Western democracy. Case in point is Eastern Europe. Once the Kremlin ceased suppressing Eastern Europe, the Eastern Europeans peacefully and quickly transformed into liberal Western democracies. Except for Romania (where the dictator was killed), there was no bloodshed. There was no violence.
In the late 1980s, what was the strength of desire for creating Western democracies in Eastern Europe? Consider Czechoslovakia. In one day of 1989 November, about 800,000 people gathered in Prague and rallied for the creation of a Western democracy. 800,000 people is about 5% of the population.
By contrast, in one day of 1989 June, about 1 million people gathered in Tiananmen Square to demand the creation of a Western democracy. 1 million people is only 0.1 % of the Chinese population.
In other words, in the late 1980s, the strength of support for democracy in Eastern Europe was 50 times the strength in China.
I admire the Eastern Europeans.
China is what it is due to how the Chinese people act and think. No foreign power is imposing the CCP on China. The Chinese people support the CCP.
how would you know?
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.
That will change.
There are many in America (and an astounding amount on Slashdot) who would love to have religion banned forever. I would go so far as to say they would advocate any and all means stamp it out. Granted, these are the same group of people whom would close down gitmo and release the prisoners because we shouldn't have gone to war in the first place. Oh the irony...
For the few open minded people left on Slashdot, I would recommend reading a book titled "Liberty and Tyranny" by Mark R. Levin. Quite an eye-opener.
Life is not for the lazy.
Here's my search: http://images.google.cn/images?gbv=2&hl=zh-CN&sa=1&q=Tiananmen+Square+(massacre+OR+killing+OR+event)
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
"My objection isn't to torture"
Yes I had noticed you dont object to torture.
Personally I would rather see torture illegal in both countries. Disembling about the reason for torture is to say the least amoral.
When you get your own house in order then you can criticize others.
Personally I condemn ALL torture, for ANY reason.
What a pity you dont.
Oh, wait...
On a more serious note, you might be taken seriously if you wrote coherently.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
And the vast majority of Chinese don't care.
And why should they? As long as you don't say inconvenient things, you can DO whatever you want in China. With freedom of action, and a growing economy, why would most Chinese care? If it weren't for the amazing economic growth presided over by the CCP, most Chinese wouldn't have access to computers to even make these websites.
Do many westerners know about those events as well?
Those events aren't as close to us - they're trivia questions whereas for Chinese it would be their history. How many people in the US know that the US liberated Kuwait from an Iraqi occupation in 1991, invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, and invaded Iraq in 2003? That is the equivalent question.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
From what I know from the similarly totalitarian communist regime that existed in eastern Europe in the past century (my parents lived there), these kind of government prefer to hand pick the people to whom they give authorizations to go abroad.
Either select people who genuinely believe so much in the government that there's no way they could get "corrupted" even when "exposed to the evil westerner capitalists".
Or select people who have enough allegiance to the government.
And then in addition to that perform regular checks, both open (interviews organized by the local embassy) and covert (have the abroad community member spy on each other to find if someone has dared to walk aside from the "golden rules set by the government").
I'm ready to bet that the same is happening with modern China.
There are people who don't believe in the current government. But those aren't the one who'll obtain an authorization to go study abroad. To much risks of defection or getting corrupted and converted by the evil westerners.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
China are only torturing their own citizens
The Tibetans aren't Chinese citizens, they're people living under a foreign occupation.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Ok: I guess I'm a little older than both of you... now I am wondering what the difference is between the collective creating a false narrative and Authority doing so. Obviously when you have men of power engaging in the deliberate re-writing of history you are soundly in George Orwell's 1984 scenario: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.". But how is that different than actions of Tobacco Industry 10 years ago or the deification of Ronald Reagan in popular conservative culture? Besides the obvious: Those in Authority do so to retain and extend power, those in industry do it to increase profit, and the proletariat do it because they are told to.
In the end the result is pretty similar, is it? Americans & The American Federal Government: made and broke treaties at whim; engaged in ethnic cleansing & genocide: and all the other horrific historical events surrounding our dealings with the native Americans. To this day native Americans are among the most disadvantaged, and the Federal Government 'lost' trillions of dollars which it was supposedly managing on their behalf. To this day the only real apology forthcoming was a symbolical statement of contrition and by now I think most rational people would say that it's too late for any real action.
Much the same can be said of the slavery in United States. Functional slavery was practiced in the United States up to the 2nd world war. The prevailing attitudes and policies of centuries created a culture within American Blacks which as best could be described as dysfunctional and self defeating. This is world that civil rights leaders of the '60s were born into. Yet this is completely unrecognized in popular history in the South Eastern United States.
In that light; I don't see the functional difference in the Chinese sitting on the Tienanmen Square Massacre until a generation or two has past. Perhaps I could also say that we in the west have no moral authority to voice a condemnation when we also do those things.
I should also add that in my opinion the Chinese Authorities have already created a dangerous nationalistic undercurrent which they neither fully understand or fully control. And it's that which posses the greatest threat to them... not anything out here in the rest of the world.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
$ sed 's/Tibet/Ireland/g' 's/China/England/g'
Ireland always had a "historic" connection to England. At times a very close connection. But that does not mean that it was inherently a part of some grater "British Empire", or that it was necessarily better off in one.
Sure, there were some benefits from being subsumed into a larger empire. But there were also drawbacks, and they outweighed the pros significantly enough for the Irish people, or most of them at least, to want to leave. And while it's true that the fortunes of the Irish state have not always been great since gaining independence, you would be hard pressed to find a significant body of people who regard independence as a net negative.
We already know what they think about it. The great empire, strong and united. All it's people grateful and proud to be a part of such a magnificent society, with freedom, prosperity and justice for all. And they'll think that even as they occupy, persecute, terrorise and loot all the peoples under their boot.
Empires are schizophrenic entities. Everyone living under them knows this. Though people in the prime nation will never awknowladge it. The English fancied themselves as ruling a great and happy British empire too, yet one by one every nation in it decided to leave. The same will happen for the Chinese empire too; that is, if those nations still exist by the time the Beijing is done with them.
May the Maths Be with you!