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China Will Partly Lift Internet Censorship For One of Its Provinces To Promote Tourism (theverge.com)
In an effort to promote tourism, the southern tropical Chinese island of Hainan will no longer censor its internet. "Visitors to select areas of Hainan will be able to access Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, according to a new plan authorities have put together to turn the province into a free trade port by 2020," reports The Verge. "It's not clear if other banned platforms will be uncensored." From the report: The three-year action plan was published on Thursday, but removed from the local government website by Friday, as spotted by the South China Morning Post. For Hainan, China will lift part of its censorship system, or what's known as the Great Firewall, that blocks access to most foreign social media and news sites. Tourists will be able to enter designated zones in Hainan's two major cities to access Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Other banned foreign social media platforms, like Google, Instagram, or WhatsApp, haven't been mentioned.
Ironically, China appears to be censoring people's reactions to the news that some censorship is being lifted. One user on Weibo commented that people weren't allowed a chance to provide any feedback on the new tourism plan. "Thousands of comments have since been deleted. As if censoring people solved the problem."
Ironically, China appears to be censoring people's reactions to the news that some censorship is being lifted. One user on Weibo commented that people weren't allowed a chance to provide any feedback on the new tourism plan. "Thousands of comments have since been deleted. As if censoring people solved the problem."
It's a trap!
They've basically turned that whole island into a honeypot
On Battlefield 4....
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
Wanna go to China? Don't care about the censorship? Have fun.
Wanna go to China and you're concerned about censorship? Oh, hey, this place I wanna go to lets me access CNN and FB, let's go!. How about "fuck no, you're giving money to a totalitarian government that is trying to get money from you".
If You Had Behaved Nicely The Communists Wouldn't Exist
~ Jenny Holzer, Survivor Series
Abuse of Power Comes As No Surprise
~ Ibid.
Censorship is not the only narrative. China has never conducted a foreign war. Its border disputes are complex and its civil wars overwhelm western approximations or experience, but all my life the propaganda-driven mythos of 5 Chinese Brothers has dominated western narratives. All my life the warning is: China is about to lash out as it spirals into chaos and strike by some vague mechanism never revealed.
Assertions about distinctions of freedom, scrutiny, liberty, and "peace" find iconographic anchors and argument long anemic and recycled-- especially Tiananmen Square-- a tragedy by all accounts and without relevance. Had Chinese leaders allowed western corporations to "collect data" about its citizens and "know" more than the government itself about its consumer trends, desires, habits, fears, and proclivities, it would have been treason. Western interests would have had unprecedented and unmeasured advantages in banking, shipping, commodities, and currency exchange markets. Western and European corporations might have sought to choke the nation entire because it would have been plausible.
Dissonance on the topic is stark and nearly ubiquitous: As Americans learn how their own enterprises cannot be trusted as they compete for dominance and all of Google rests on the promises of anonymous collection, the NSA, CIA, and FBI have all acquiesced to contractors and admitted, if only representationally, what corporations CAN know about any individual dwarfs the methods and and resources once the monopoly of the US government.
What China has historically experienced is reeling from unexpected invasion, and the meddling of foreign powers with its neighbors. China has always been forced to protect itself. Yet most western narratives assert China's now plus billion people are "trapped" and its actions aim to accrue some capital to be an aggressor all while the US places military bases everywhere else around the world. South China Sea? How is China's military or trade strategies in waters so close to its borders even a topic? Because most discussions about China by so-called educated people resemble the boasts and assertions of teenagers at play with a game of Risk.
Maintaining global balances of trade is how the US insinuates itself into far off lands and some of it is reasonable. I'm no apologist for criticism of central planning politics and its inevitable corruption, but the "drums" of western dialogues on the topic are exhausting and puerile.
Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
I also get along fine without most of that stuff when I'm in China. I've still not found a good substitute for Google Translate's character recognition, though. Fortunately, I now know enough of them that I can usually find my way around without much trouble.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
^Look and learn, kids: This is what happens when you hold your copypasta wrong.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Modern China has a tradition of trying major policy or law changes in one province first (and then, if it goes well possibly extend them to the whole country a few years later).
It makes sense to me: we often have politicians and people in countries debating about the possible impact of some far-reaching legislative or policy changes (and often the discussion mostly ignores precedent from other countries where available). But actually trying it on a limited scale gives some useful data