With Olympics Over, China Re-Censors Internet 242
eldavojohn writes "We last left the story of Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China when the IOC had reached a deal with the Chinese government whereby some of the press restrictions were lifted. With the 2008 Olympics now but a memory, China has began censoring foreign news sources again. Maybe the West is making too big of a deal over this, as many Chinese citizens seem to like it that way."
They were censoring during the Olympics (Score:5, Informative)
I was there during the Olympics and had internet access through a residential hookup. There was a lot of censoring going on: for example, URLs containing "blog" were generally not accessible. It was clearly not related to what was on the blog, but a blanket thing.
Re:Are we becoming bullies? (Score:3, Informative)
There is nothing unusual about having your internet access filtered in the workplace, which is a far cry from the great firewall of china.
Re:"many Chinese citizens seem to like it that way (Score:1, Informative)
As hard as it may be to believe for jaded Americans, the majority of the Chinese actually approve of and trust their government.
Sorry, but that is not a justification, that is apologia. I'm Asian too (though not Chinese) and I don't buy into this cultural relativism bullshit.
Some values are objectively good and others are objectively bad, no matter how many people support or oppose them. Democracy, pluralism, classical liberalism and free speech are objectively good, and not having any (PR China) is objectively bad.
Americans didn't make any moral relativist comparisons when they contributed to the liberation of Europe. The only reason why some idiotic Americans buy into this moral relativism bullshit now (and why you got modded up by them) is because of a pervasive malaise of postmodernist pseudo - intellectualism (of which cultural relativism is a part) that they are teaching them in some American schools these days. It willfully ignores the terrible atrocities committed by the Han-Chauvinist Chinese regime against non-Han people (and several Han people as well) using such nonsensical ideologies as a crutch, it's utterly disgusting.
By your logic, Americans shouldn't protest the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan (presently funded by China) because the Janjaweed and their sympathizers are perfectly content with it.
Re:...as many Chinese citizens seem to like it tha (Score:3, Informative)
Does islam encourage the rape of children ? Well here's the description of what the paedophile prophet did to a 9 year old he had bought :
islam encourages child rape as much as christianity encourages smashing babies heads against rocks.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones Against the rock.
Re:The Chinese are ignorant. (Score:3, Informative)
Depends what you call 'Western'. The French Revolution ended in 1799. Since then, a large part of the USA broke away and fought its own unsuccessful war of independence from 1861-65. The Irish Free State was established in 1922, after violent revolts on and off since 1916 culminating in a downright vicious terrorist campaign. Mussolini came to power in Italy in the same year, at the head of an armed coup d'etat by his Fascist party, with substantial popular support. In 1932 an army of war veterans marched on Washington to demand payments they were owed; there they were defeated by the military and failed to achieve their aims. In 1956 Hungary revolted against the Soviets, to little avail. Cuba revolted against the US-dominated gangster regime of Batista and installed a Communist state in 1959. Czechoslovakia revolted, unsuccessfully, against Soviet domination in 1968; in the same year Socialist strikes and sit-ins in Paris came close to bringing down the French state. In 1989 the success of Solidarity in achieving reform in Poland triggered a wave of revolt across eastern Europe and ultimately brought down the Soviet Union; many of these nations are now full EU members. Finally, bit by bit during the 1990s, Yugoslavia was torn apart by a series of ethnic secessionist movements and a long saga of bloody warfare.
That's just off the top of my head, cheating a little with Wikipedia to get the dates right. I'm sure a little research would turn up a whole lot more. Really, the twentieth century is one long saga of revolts and revolutions.