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China Unblocks the BBC (In English)
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Mar 25, 2008 04:08 PM
from the firewall-what-firewall-i-don't-see-any-firewall dept.
from the firewall-what-firewall-i-don't-see-any-firewall dept.
An anonymous reader writes in with news that China has unblocked the BBC Web site — the English-language version at any rate. No announcement was made, because China has never acknowledged blocking the BBC for the last decade. The Chinese-language version of the site has been blocked since its inception in 1999. The article speculates that the easing of censorship may be tied to the upcoming Olympic Games.
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Submission: The great firewall of China unblocks the BBC by Anonymous Coward
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regarding the olympics (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:regarding the olympics (Score:5, Insightful)
People from all over the world will be visiting and all kinds of reporters will be onsite. How many reports do you think we will see that tell us China blocks part of the internet. Telling us stuff we already told them but they refused to listen.
This will be a big black eye for China because the whole world will be faced with the details and feel the impact.
This could get interesting.
I saw one person mention tor as a work around. I think using a VPN could also work for them.
Parent
It is open if you understand English (Score:5, Informative)
As I lived in China for 3 years, you can surf most English foreign media websites like CNN, New York Times, etc., most of the times. They don't really care. Because if you are so fluent in English, you already know all about human rights and you are likely a member of the better-off class. In China, like everywhere else, the people that want to and will revolve against the government are the poor people -- never the middle class or rich people. Remember who in the U.S. joint the L.A. riots in the 1990's?
In China, they are most interested in blocking oversea/HK/Taiwan Chinese sites. Like sina.com is a Chinese company operating two sites -- one for domestic and others for oversea with contents not allowed in China.
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Re:It is open if you understand English (Score:5, Insightful)
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However, while you need educated people to lead, you usually need uneducated people to follow. And there are always more followers then leaders, or at least there should be!
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Re:regarding the olympics (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:regarding the olympics (Score:5, Insightful)
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Expats got around it anyway (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Expats got around it anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep in mind that part of the reason the International Olympic Committee gave China the games was to create international pressure for change... and not of the TOR variety.
I find it ironic that, despite publicly stating they wanted to create pressure, now the IOC is condemning calls to boycott the Beijing Olympics, amongst other things.
Parent
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That's wrongheaded, anyway. You don't give a bully what he wants and then tell him it's because you want him to stop being a bully. No, you tell him up front he won't get what he wants until he stops being a bully, and that only as long as he continues to play nice.
This had nothing to do with trying to encourage change in China's go
About Time (Score:2, Funny)
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if you only read mandarin (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:if you only read mandarin (Score:5, Informative)
The majority of Chinese, the only ones with a smidgen of possibility of success to revolt and start a revolution due to their sheer numbers, are the ones the Chinese establishment wants to keep dumb and oblivious. The ones with perhaps most to gain from a new democratic China.
So much for the classless society communism promises.
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Re:if you only read mandarin (Score:4, Insightful)
You're incredibly naive. Do you actually believe that China is a communist state? If yes, I might have a bridge to sell you.
Seriously, the fact that someone claims they're something doesn't make it true. Would you point at North Korea and say "democracy doesn't work" because they call themselves a "democratic republic"? Of course not.
That's not to say that communism does or can work - it doesn't, and it can't. But no matter what, communism hasn't got the slightest thing to do with modern China.
Parent
Maybe you should go to China and learn Chinese (Score:4, Insightful)
I will suggest you to do two things: (1) get a travel visa to China, go to a large city like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and visit some English corners (if you don't know where to find one, try google [google.com]; (2) start learning written Chinese and visit the discussion forums of Chinese news website like sina.com [sina.com.cn] for sometimes, especially for discussions about corruption cases, housing prices, or even news when the stock market heads down.
(1) will show you who and how many people are fluent in English; (2) will show you if people there know about "democracy", "freedom" and "equality" and if people can criticize the government or not. don't take my words here. go try the above two things. Of course, you can also choose just to listen the mainstream opinions you have heard from CNN and Slashdot -- that's your right as well.
Parent
Submit to the authorities! (Score:5, Funny)
Are you in China? What is your reaction to this story? Is this your first time reading the BBC News website?
Followed by a block to enter your name, address and phone number. Yea right, that's a good idea, log on with your real info and complain about how your government censors you....and leave your contact info.
Re:Submit to the authorities! (Score:5, Funny)
Or the contact info of someone you don't like.
Parent
I am posting from China (Score:5, Funny)
It's Transistor Radios All Over Again (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a page right out Chairman Mao's playbook. When Nixon went China, the handlers routinely gave people on the street transistor radios [time.com] to listen to. That way Nixon and Kissenger would say, "Wow. What a nice scene. China truly is wonderful place." Then as soon as these people were out of sight of dignitaries, goons (I'm sorry, "the advance team") would collect the radios for redistribution to other Potemkin Villages.
As David Byrne said, "Same as it ever was."
I'm going to be in Beijing next month in a hotel down by the Bird's Nest. I'm going to have to check out the Great Firewall.
Re:It's Transistor Radios All Over Again (Score:4, Insightful)
If the journo's attempt to go outside the "gated world" you foresee then they will either, a: find the real story and report it (scoop!), or b: have some "obey all orders" state authority tell them they are barred - the journo's will report that (scoop!) and China will still look bad.
This Olympics were only ever going to be a success for China if the media played along with their "lets all play happy families, look everything is nice" game - I was pleased to see the widespread reporting of the Tibet protesters interrupting the torch lighting in Greece (coincidentally I can see the 5 rings depicted as handcuffs becoming a oft repeated protest symbol for this games) - that is indicative that the media aren't going to play the brush it under the carpet game.
I partly feel sorry for the honest Chinese people who want to be proud of their country. And in truth the oppression and censorship isn't really 100 miles away from some practices in the western world (camp X ray, extraordinary rendition being two examples where the moral code of conduct has just been chucked in the fire). But at the same time the Chinese government is just far too easy a target - the appallingly hilarious cold war communist part ways that they attempt to deny the plain truth ("the sky is blue" - reply "no it isn't" end of discussion) is just far too easy to make a mockery out of.
Let the games commence.
Parent
Re:It's Transistor Radios All Over Again (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the US has done some nasty things, but come on, to compare it in any way to the vast machinery of propaganda that PRC uses to control the Chinese people with the idiocies and sins of your average US Administration is pathetic. I didn't notice anybody getting trundled off to jail for reporting on the various abuses. The Administration makes its loud noises, but the NY Times is still there, and still critical of the government.
Governments, by their very nature, will abuse the rights of people under their control (citizens and non-citizens alike). The key here is not that any country have some sort of perfect government, but that the key checks of a free press and the freedom to voice one's opinion are sacrosanct.
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Great Wall fun (Score:2)
Also, don't forget to bargain at
Asymmetric Information... (Score:2)
Yes, I prefer that I have as free access to as much information as possible.
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mr bean (Score:3)
ironic... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ironic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
And the BBC blocked... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yaa, it's always the slant-eyed reds who won't bow down to the US who are the censoring types who kdawson has to post "news" articles about again and again and again. Never mind that people in the US who sell PAID-FOR satellite access to Al Manar [nytimes.com] are thrown into prison to rot. Never mind that the Great Firewall of China was mostly built not in China but by the largest companies dotting the San Francisco Bay area. As Easter just ended, a quote from old JC - look not for the speck in your neighbor's eye when you have a log in your own.
Re:And the BBC blocked... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:And the BBC blocked... (Score:5, Insightful)
The more general issue though is that the BBC (and other outlets) engage in widespread self-censorship. Just look at the way the BBC handles the official statements of different governments. When it comes to Russia the BBC treat them with suspicion and try to second guess them and look at all the possible ulterior motives. When it comes to the US or UK, there is no such analysis and the arguments become confined within the narrow parameters laid out by those governments. So BBC discussion of Iraq becomes an analysis of how our good intentions have gone wrong, or why we messed up with the intelligence, rather than trying to look at any possible ulterior motives etc.
Parent
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Totally correct. People forget that the BBC is, and always has been, a propaganda tool for the UK Government -- probably an espionage tool too.
My first thought on seeing this article was that the most likely reason was a deal done by the BBC / UK Government and China -- i.e. not that China was becoming more liberal, but that the BBC had agreed on certain censorships.
cat and mouse. (Score:5, Interesting)
My conclusion was that the firewall was very very definately real, and the moment it found a foreign news story, the wrong keyword then suddenly wierd timelags and delays in page lookups would occur as my unseen companion blocked or cleared at whim. I also could of sworn that the system could tell the difference between the net being accessed from a posh hotel occupied by Western Engineers and a street cafe.
Tibet a factor (Score:5, Informative)
When it comes to Tibet, the more Western media that gets in the better for the Chinese government. There is an intense vein of nationalism in China when it comes to Tibet. With outpourings of rage about "biased" western media, distorted facts, and CIA plots to break up China. The more Tibet-sympathetic reports that come from the West and leak in the China, the stronger this nationalism seems to get, and the more the people, even the poor, rally around their government.
My other half is a Chinese national, we've had some very intense conversations lately, and she's sent me links to views coming out of China about the Tibet situation. Ordinary Chinese see this as a direct attack on their sovereignty.
Many Chinese are learning English, especially the under 20 crowd. In the major eastern cities it's now required for all students in elementary school. If the government can channel their unrest against the Imperial West who's trying to break up their country, it takes the heat off the government. The Chinese government has long used nationalism, an us vs. them mentality, to deflect attention from itself domestically.
Of course they certainly wouldn't be the only country doing this, it's a long standing tradition for any unpopular regime. If you can draw this line between you and another group, and get your people to rally around you on some point, you can easily manipulate and pacify a population.
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Re:Tibet a factor (Score:4, Interesting)
There is strong belief that the Dali Lama was an illegitimate monarch who enslaved his people. And it's fascinating how the West and China see him so completely differently. Cruel dictator? The Dali Lama? Surely not.
But of course listening to arguments on why there IS democracy in China is fascinating too.
She did admit that one reason for the invasion was to create a defensive barrier, to take control of a strategic area when it came to mountain fortification. But yes, the idea of historic control of Tibet by China, by that argument Italy should claim control of most of Europe, they controlled it 2000 years ago (a longer claim then China over Tibet). And from the history I've read, for parts of this period, the control was the other way around - Tibet controlled large parts of China, they weren't always pacifist monks.
Parent
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Of course it has a point. If you're arguing that the BBC has a bias, then providing the list of those individuals, groups, organizations, countries, etc. that it shows a bias towards is pretty much required. If you're not going to provide the list, then it's pretty clear that you are unwilling or incapable of supporting your claim.
I mean do you actually think you're such an important person that we should just take you at your word?
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