How China keeps its blogosphere in check

A must-read article from Business Week. Every point, from what Mu Zi Mei is up to now to the efforts to control political discussion will be appreciated by readers interested in China.

The Discussion: 8 Comments

Richard, think this link might be wrong…

August 6, 2005 @ 8:56 pm | Comment

Fixed – thanks!

August 6, 2005 @ 9:02 pm | Comment

I still don’t understand why they chose Muzimei as a judge for this Blog competition in Germany. I never read her blog but from what I read she crossed an ethical line when revealing the true names of her lovers.

August 7, 2005 @ 4:00 am | Comment

you can read below message wrote by a CHinese student from Australia. I agree with his view:

China do has a lot of problem waiting to be solved, but on the other hand you should also see what we have achieved.

Can you tell a country which doesnot have any social problem? there is not one in this world.

China has a population of 1.4 billion, it is hard to solve all the problems in a short time. but we do see the good trend. the people’s living standard is increasing year by year, the democracy development is moving forward day by day.

the difference between you and me is that, I see both the problems and the achievement. I cheer up for what Chinese people have achieved, also dare to join those to criticize and push the govenment to put more efforts to solve the problems and make progress. But you, you are just like those anti-chinese forces who do not want, and even darenot ever recognize the bright side but concentrate on the black side in order to find a excuse for your unrevealble vicious motive.

there is a proverb saying Roma is not built over one night. that is true with the development of the United States, Britain, Australia, also China. When you compare China with those developed countries,could you please spend a second on comparing China with those developing countries? It is only in this way you could get rational and reasonable conclusion.

China needs time, Chinese people need time too. Nobody expects to swallow a steambread over one gulp.

August 7, 2005 @ 11:44 am | Comment

ko,

The people asking for time are those already in a privileged position, the ones who have done well from China’s growth and the CCP that has a monopoly on government.

On the other hand, China’s poor do not have the luxury of time that the aforementioned people do. No one here wants China to undergo immediate and destructive change, but many of us also believe that the CCP is stalling on political reform in the hope that economic success can “buy off” Chinese people. They have been in power for 55 years or so. If the CCP was changing, they would have given a real funeral to Comrade Zhao Ziyang, one of the architects of modern China. But they suppressed news of his death for a long time, did not give him a State funeral and still insisted that he made “mistakes”.

This is indicative of the current attitude of the CCP – that the only Chinese politician in 1989 who argued against using lethal force against the civilian population was right to be illegally and unconstitutionally removed from office and given a sub-par funeral.

The CCP wants to hang on to power as long as it can. Every time it has made statements about China’s political future, democracy, etc it comes out with weasely comments that say China has to be a “special case” and that it “can’t rush”. Well given that they never say how long this “process” of reform is going to take even vaguely (10 years, 20 years, 100 years????), I don’t think they’re even moving forward – personally I see the CCP sat underneath a tree on a hot summer’s day, glugging on a beer called “China”.

August 8, 2005 @ 6:02 am | Comment

Raj

from your name you are Indian?

no, you are wrong. the CHina’s economic growth does go to majority of the people. just look arround, my family, my high school, university class mates. their living standard have improved greatly these years.
please stop saying CCP this or CCP that. CCP=CHinese government. and CHina no longer real communist country, the CCP(CHinese government) now days is very different from the 50’s and 60’s.
CCP (CHinese government) is no longer real communist party, they are now CHina’s ruling government just like old time China, their main focus is to achieve stable sociaty, improve people’s living standard, making our country a better, stronger country. sure there is weakness with CHinese government same as any other government, but we can feel that things are improving.
our life is getting better day by day and we have more freedom

August 8, 2005 @ 4:37 pm | Comment

oh, certainly there are people still poor especially in inland China, but Chinese government now is putting more money to develop inland cities so that people there can have better life. certainly there are some problems come out, but remeber China has 1.4 billion people. it will take some time for every Chinese become well off. remeber, you can not build Rome in one day, but we are working toward it.

August 8, 2005 @ 4:55 pm | Comment

Ko, you crack me up! CCP has been in power for nearly 60 years, and you say “Rome wasn’t built in a day”! And you say, “certainly there are people still poor especially in inland China…” Oh, really? You mean there are actually poor people in China? You make it sound like poor people are an exception, and a dying breed. In case you haven’t heard, there are about 800-900 MILLION poor people in China, so poor they don’t know whether they’ll have enough food to eat at night.

You should get a job at Xinhua, you are a walking, talking propaganda tool.

August 8, 2005 @ 5:13 pm | Comment

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