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It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't know overseas Chinese until you've been blasted with the evils of the US media industry (substitute publishing, indymedia, ad nos.). I have been in the overseas community since I met the lady who became my wife a decade ago. Since then, every Chinese person I brought the subject up with was unaware that North Korea invaded South Korea. None knew how many Chinese died in the war. One out of many knew that China fought the UN in the Korean War. Overseas Chinese do not know that China invaded Tibet. Many were unaware that China fought a war with India. Most did know of the Sino-Vietnam War, but did not know China lost. Many were also aware that China fought a low intensity war against the USSR for a decade.
All educated Chinese I have met, who should through their "education" know better regarding their government and its actions, are deliberately ignorant of recent history.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do many westerners know about those events as well? It's also interesting how many westerners know about Tiananmen, but don't actually know what happened.
Ignorance of recent history (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Insightful)
All I could think of while reading your comment is the Jay Leno pieces where they ask similar questions of Americans on the street and get just as many blank stares.
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Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't know overseas Chinese until you've been blasted with the evils of the US media industry (substitute publishing, indymedia, ad nos.). I have been in the overseas community since I met the lady who became my wife a decade ago. Since then, every Chinese person I brought the subject up with was unaware that North Korea invaded South Korea. None knew how many Chinese died in the war. One out of many knew that China fought the UN in the Korean War. Overseas Chinese do not know that China invaded Tibet. Many were unaware that China fought a war with India. Most did know of the Sino-Vietnam War, but did not know China lost. Many were also aware that China fought a low intensity war against the USSR for a decade. All educated Chinese I have met, who should through their "education" know better regarding their government and its actions, are deliberately ignorant of recent history.
There is a dilemma that means educating the overseas students is never likely to be sufficient. If you tell an ex-pat how rotten you think their government is, they will probably defend it even if they would normally criticise it at home. A less sensitive example: there are very few Brits who are imperialist or who think non-democratic colonialism is a good thing; tell them how terrible you think the British Empire was, though, and they will defend it as being historically much more just and self-correcting than any of the other empires of the era. They don't really see it as you criticising a system, but see it as you belittling their people. So if you tell overseas Chinese students how bad the Chinese government is, depending on how you put it, they might not thank you for it. And they are unlikely to pass on your criticisms back home. Actually, for China it is worse than that: many Chinese students overseas are asked to monitor other Chinese students, to make sure they don't hang out with the wrong crowd, etc. So, even if a student is open to your criticism of his country, it can be personally a bit risky for him to hang out with groups that openly and vehemently criticise the government. The upshot is that it has to be handled sensitively, and it's unlikely we'll make much real progress until it is possible for Chinese people to criticise their government more openly at home, rather than abroad.
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Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The strangest thing about the Government of China's censorship over the last twenty years, in remained in place and even tightened up as the government transitioned from a communist country to a corporate fascist country. So a country that switched from blind political ideology and the unquestioning worship and obedience of those in power to blind greed and the unquestioning worship and obedience of those in power.
So in the last twenty years the 'currency' of power has changed but they have remained lock
Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Insightful)
See, this is where your propaganda cool aid shows up. *Despite* claiming that the chinese have an unbiased view of the events and other countries, the bias still shows up in your views.
As an Indian, I can confirm that we are actually *taught* in school and colleges that India lost the Sino-Indian War. There is no delusion there. We lost. China won. As such, not even a school child in India thinks that we did not lose in any way. The Indian schoolbooks say that we won(or drew) every single war with Pakistan. They clearly say that India lost the war with China.
*Your* bias is clear however, when you stated your belief that some "hardcore Indian nationalist" do not believe India lost. I have yet to come across an Indian who believes so, specially when we get taught otherwise in schools.
From our version of history, Tibet was a territory conquered sometimes by Indian kings and sometimes by the Chinese(Since a unified India did not actually exist pre-mughal period). Britishers snatched it from the Chinese empire several centuries ago, and China simply sat quietly since it didn't think it was capable of taking on the British naval forces etc. at that point. Once the British decided to leave India, China evaluated the weaker Indian army and decided to stake its centuries old claim again. The Indian army which is still weaker than China and even then in its nascent stage, lost against the Chinese forces.
The Chinese Invasion came unexpected when negotiations were going on, and China was actually extending friendly overtures to India. This situation was the result of the idiocy of Nehru to attempt an alliance with China and at the same time antagonize China by giving refuge to the Dalai Lama(Which was obviously seen by China as interference in its internal affairs). Nevertheless, in background of the negotiations and Zhou Enlai claiming that there was no dispute between India and China, the unexpected attacks are seen by India as a stab in the back and betrayal of trust. So strong was the belief that India and China were allies, that Indian air force, which could have possibly succeeded in repelling the Chinese, was told to stand down.
The Indian perception of the Indo-sino war is that Nehru was an idiot to attempt an alliance with China, and that no matter how justified the Chinese claim over Tibet was, China/Zhou Enlai should have not pretended to "be friends to India", if China intended to invade over the territorial dispute.
And in that light, *of course* the Indians see Chinese as double-dealing backstabbers, but kindly stop claiming that any Indian claims that India won the Indo-Sino war. Indians do hate/mistrust the chinese in general, but they don't have any delusions about losing the Indo-Sino war.
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Selected for that... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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I believe anon's point was if we who live in the "land of the free" can have people who blindly support the government no matter what, then what hope does your average Chinese have?
Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Interesting)
I share your surprise - considering all the backlash that the various Western pre-Olympic protests against China and/or their actions saw from regular Chinese people, I was beginning to get the impression that many of them are happy enough with the state of affairs to actively defend it, so they certainly wouldn't challenge it. In that context I wouldn't have thought that information like this was that much of a risk any more.
Obviously the protests may present a skewed perspective from both sides, but to me it looks like the government are sitting pretty solidly. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe they're just so used to suppressing speech that they either don't think to stop or don't want to risk it in view of the small amount of international praise they stand to gain.
I wonder what the people of China would choose, politically speaking, if the people were given the option?
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I keep seeing these comparisons, but the last time I checked, at no point in US history has the government been able to get away with not only driving tanks in to extinguish protests, but also being able to make it so that no one can talk about it AND have everyone act as though the Chinese government can do no wrong.
No one is pretending that US policy has always been free of hypocrisy, nor that China is always evil and wrong, but their actions in regard to free expression only appear to compare to those of
Re:It's still inconvenient? (Score:5, Interesting)
[Shrug] It took many years before China admitted the great depths of mistakes [wikipedia.org] made many decades ago [wikipedia.org], and yet the main guy responsible is still revered and there's still a lot of glossing over of the real effects (e.g., tens of millions of deaths). Denial of one's mistakes is naturally popular. Why wouldn't they continue the tradition? Maybe they'll be ready to face the reality of the massacre at Tiananmen Square in a few more decades.
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Re: (Score:2)
Don't you mean, "it's still inconvenient for the Chinese government that this BE seen by the public?"
Klein's article on BigBrotherChina is excellent. (Score:4, Informative)
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 [naomiklein.org]
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine [naomiklein.org]
And the secret sauce is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:And the secret sauce is... (Score:4, Interesting)
Absolute rubbish. But actually it's even more scary.
Joe public in China don't live in a state of fear, because of mass surveillance; they live in a state of ignorance because of the governments cultural sandbox.
The government is widely seen as doing a good job of solving those "unique Chinese problems", imaginary or otherwise.
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Re:And the secret sauce is... (Score:5, Insightful)
they live in a state of ignorance because of the governments cultural sandbox.
This statement is half right. The lessons of twentieth century totalitarianism is that what you call a "cultural sandbox" doesn't work. If so, a little perestoika wouldn't have been enough to cause the Soviet Union to fly apart. The truth was that the pablum of the state had never been internalized by the citizens. A thinking totalitarian would learn from this failure. You can't assume that because they're values are different from ours that they are too stupid to learn.
There are plenty of Chinese people who travel overseas for business or deal with foreigners. Each one of these is a potential vector for what the authorities would consider malignant ideas. I don't deny that the state acts like things like the Great Firewall are politically important. Perhaps they have their uses, but I actually think they may be as symptomatic as they are cause.
It's not enough to create a vacuum of information in peoples' heads. You have to put something there.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I won't disagree with the financial aspect of the collapse. I'm just pointing out that Soviets were well aware of how screwed up their government was, and that when things started to fall apart, it was remarkable how all the ideas the government spent decades suppressing turned out to be alive and well and in the wild.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather, the Chinese don't protest because protest is unsafe. Here's an example:
When my sister was in China about a year ago, she asked her guide about Tiananmen. Her guide replied:
"One day there were 50,000 people. The next day there were 50,000 bicycles."
The meaning was clear: 50,000 dead people (or however many, but that's the number the Chinese guide used) left behind 50,000 bicycles. BUT -- no one will say outright that anyone was KILLED, let alone by the gov't.
No Brutal Authoritarian Government Required (Score:2)
I am not convinced that an authoritarian government is so necessary to re-write the popular mythology of recent history. The US does not have a government which is strongly authoritarian, yet the re-writing of history is a prominent form of political speech in America.
I've come across several other examples: Japanese popular history of the nature of their involvement in WWII. Australian & American popular history of the treatment of Aboriginals / Native Americans. I am more familiar with American
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 i
1 print page... (Score:2)
http://www.networkworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi?pagetosend=/export/home/httpd/htdocs/news/2009/052909-20-years-after-tiananmen-china.html&pagename=/news/2009/052909-20-years-after-tiananmen-china.html&pageurl=http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/052909-20-years-after-tiananmen-china.html&site=datacenter [networkworld.com]
Take note (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one of the countries that people want to let control DNS.
China is the product of Chinese culture. (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]. 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.
Re:China is the product of Chinese culture. (Score:5, Interesting)
'The Chinese people support the CCP'
It is not so straightforward as this. There is plenty of discontent. Corrupt officials and police are hated. The CCP do a good job of getting the glory of the Chinese people's fervent nationalistic feeling. Control of the media makes this not too difficult a task.
'This government has existed for decades because a majority of Chinese support it'
Not really - it has existed by control, through force, fear and a growing economy. There is no way of testing how many people actually support the government.
'By contrast, in one day of 1989 June, about 1 million people gathered in Tiananmen Square to demand the creation of a Western democracy'
Wrong on a number of details. The gathering happened throughout the preceding 6 weeks, at least. Many, many more gathered in major cities throughout China at the same time. (I witnessed demonstrations in May 1989 in Beijing,Shanghai,Wuhan,Chongqing, Chengdu).
There was no 'demand for the creation of a Western democracy' (ok - individuals might have said this, but no definite concept demanded). The people were fed up with the system, lack of opportunity, corruption - it was an outpouring of many grievances.
However, I suppose your point is that, if the people were fed up then they could have/should have overthrown the government. The fact they didn't is more to do with the fact that China is a big place, with a mix of cultures,languages, poor communication (especially in 1989), with no environment for establishing a concerted opposition. You cannot infer that, because the people did not overthrow the government, the people support it.
(signed: a long term foreign resident of China)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, you don't complain in China if you know what's good for you. How many stories do we see every year about prominent protestors being thrown into labor camps?
Take Hong Kong for a recent example of how life in China works. As soon as the transition was complete - Basic Law, Special Administrative Region or not - the newspapers and politicians made fast 180's and self-censored to avoid bringing the wrath of the Chinese government down on them. Are you saying that a majority of people in Hong Kong love commu
Re:China is the product of Chinese culture. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
1. The entire country is the size of South Carolina (#40 US) so gathering all the people in easier, unlike China which is same size as the United States.
2. That was by far the first mass demonstration, if left in peace the Chinese mass demonstration would probably have grown a lot too.
3. The Soviet Union was gone, the Communist Party was failing. It's easy to get out on the streets when you don't fear tanks running you over much.
You say 50:1. On the monday prior to the 800,000 demonstrating, 100,000 was demonstrating. That is more like 6:1. Add in the fact that 90% live too far away to possibly go to Beijing just for a demonstration and you start to realize the Tiananmen Square demonstrations were probably as big as any in Eastern Europe, maybe even bigger. But they were struck down with hard military force just like the Soviet Union did, exactly in Czechoslovakia in 1968. On the saturday you speak of the Communist Party had more or less already admitted defeat, so you're really comparing apples and oranges here.
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Fat and Happy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fat and Happy (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Unfortunately, I think you are wrong and that the West basically missed its opportunity to promote reform in China 30 years ago or more. One of the most effective ways of promoting liberalisation in formerly restrictive regimes has been the EU -- a large trigger for the democratisation of Eastern Europe was access to the EU free market, and pots of money. Not to belittle the Cold War, but a big factor in the Berlin Wall falling was poor East Germans knowing the West Germans were doing it much better and that the only way to join in the wealth was to liberalise. Since then, eastern European countries have been falling over backwards to reform themselves and get themselves on that EU gravy train. Hardly surprising -- the same trick worked just as efficiently way back in the 70s with Spain. With China, meanwhile, we've effectively let them join in the riches without any hint of reform -- the EU and US has happily outsourced all its production to China without much regard to reform or political, religious, or personal freedom. We no longer have a juicy economic carrot to wave in front of them, because we've long since given it to them. They can't get "better access to our markets" because they've pretty much already got complete access to our markets.
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Some surprising results searching google.cn (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's my search: http://images.google.cn/images?gbv=2&hl=zh-CN&sa=1&q=Tiananmen+Square+(massacre+OR+killing+OR+event) [google.cn]
Re:Some surprising results searching google.cn (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. Do not use a Chinese proxy, even if you are curious. You could get someone killed or thrown in jail.
If you are really curious, try putting some banned keywords [wikipedia.org] into some Chinese websites from your own internet connection.
Many [alexa.com] Chinese web searches are accessible from $your_country.
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The Chinese Government Censors... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Like this not happens in America (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Smaller? Maybe, certainly softer. Instead of outright censorship, they engage in manipulation. Deny access to the battlefield for all but embedded reporters who see everything from the perspective of the soldiers in their unit but never get a chance to spend more than a few minutes talking to the "enemy" and then almost never in an open situation. Similarly control access to other sources of news like interviews with high ranking officials so that you only get the interview if you only pitch'em slowbal
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Oh, wait...
On a more serious note, you might be taken seriously if you wrote coherently.
Re:Like this not happens in America (Score:5, Insightful)
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how would you know?
Re:Like this not happens in America (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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"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.
Re:Like this not happens in America (Score:5, Informative)
China are only torturing their own citizens
The Tibetans aren't Chinese citizens, they're people living under a foreign occupation.
-jcr
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$ 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 inh
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