Slashdot Mirror
China Blocks 'Egypt' On Twitter-Like Site
Suki I writes with this excerpt from news.com.au: "China has blocked the word 'Egypt' from the country's wildly popular Twitter-like service, while coverage of the political turmoil has been tightly restricted in state media. China's ruling Communist Party is sensitive to any potential source of social unrest. A search for 'Egypt'' on the Sina microblogging service brings up a message saying, 'According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not shown.' The service has more than 50 million users. News on the Egypt protests has been limited to a few paragraphs and photos buried inside major news websites, but China Central Television had a report on its midday broadcast. China's Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the events in Egypt."
To us Chinese, this is hardly news, considering that they block all kinds of stuff like "carrot"(contains a character which also occurs in the president's name) and "empty chair".
The Chinese govt gets nervous anytime any dictatorship is under attack.
Guilty conscience pricks the mind.
Well isn't that cute. Apparently the old nellies in the communist party of China are somehow feeling a bit threatened by protests happening in an entirely different country, involving an entirely different culture, and involving an entirely different type of government. What could they possibly think is the connection between communist China and the Mubarak/NDP party rule in Egypt? The politics is completely different. It doesn't make any sense.
Oh, wait, I know what the connection is -- the longing of the people to be free of autocratic rule, which transcends borders and the peculiarities of political parties. I can see why the people in power might be a little frightened by that. It's something that autocratic regimes always worry about -- that the people might finally rise up and say "enough".
I wonder if they'll block "Tahrir Square" next? (It means "Liberation Square" in Egyptian)
According to Al Jazeera and everyone they've interviewed for days on their live stream, CNN, BBC, Twitter, and in general the whole of the internet, this is a genuinely popular revolution in Egypt, and everyone from children to seniors are participating in it. Of course the protests are mostly dominated by young adults, but that's because they have the worst unemplyoment and most zeal, energy, and strength. Nevertheless, those police that aren't apparently ransacking the city in plain clothes are either hiding or have joined with the protesters, and the army seems to have also sided with the protesters. During Tiananmen, too, the army sided with the people. The Communist Party of China's ace in the hole was that they were able to bring in military units from far away from Beijing that weren't as empathetic to Beijing-ers. I'm no expert in the Middle-East, but I doubt Egypt has that kind of massiveness, and also, unlike Beijing, the Egypt protests are country-wide.
I've heard a lot that the people of Egypt were a little bit embarrassed that a small country like Tunisia could topple a dictator when they couldn't. Egypt has more than 5000 years of history, and Egyptians have some pride and exceptionalism regarding their long history and power in the Arab world. Chinese people also have a lot of pride and exceptionalism in their long history, and feel that they should be the center of the world in Asia. In that regard, the two countries aren't so different, and this revolution could be very threatening to the communist regime.
In reality, I think as long as China continues to concretely improve, at a snails pace though it may be, there will not be sufficient appetite for a revolution in China. To say that the CPC is a little bit paranoid about revolutions and stability, though, would be an understatement.