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13 Responses to “ China: The fear implied in a real-name internet ”

1. Roy G says:

   6 May, 2009 at 1:59 PM

   Fascinating piece by China blogger Bob Chen.

   The fact that anonymity was ever allowed by internet users in China, would be news to most Americans. Now they want to require their citizens to use real names on the internet, obviously so they can more easily track down political dissent.

   Which according to this article, was happening. The Chinese have used
   the WWW to make an ad hoc form of free speech and free press, that they never previously had under their non-elected communist politburo.

   It’s amazing that their government, ever expected any different outcome from mass access to the internet. Free expression = human nature = human rights. Successors of Mao, wake up…

   New layers of intimidation to engage in political dissent notwithstanding, there is another dynamic at work with WWW access: Windows on the world. It used to be one of the most closed societies on the planet. But how many millions of Chinese have now been exposed to Western cultures and personal freedoms? They have only filtered and censored access, but it can’t stop everything. More and more, connected Chinese see how
   the free world lives.

   Via Gorbachev’s Glasnost policy which predated the WWW, knowledge of the outside world and how it did things, and the benefits that provided to ordinary people, is what brought down the Soviet Union.

   So a free China is on the way at some point IMO, real-name laws or not.
2. Roy G says:

   6 May, 2009 at 2:12 PM

   Also – check out the Mazda ad at the bottom of the page, of Bob’s 2nd link in his article.

   The page is in Chinese, but a picture (or in this case flash ad banner) says a thousand words about change brought by global interaction. What gives you more personal freedom than your car? ;^)
3. Sammy from Sicily says:

   6 May, 2009 at 4:38 PM

   I believe that China has made progress in giving its people the access to internet in the first place.

   I know that I used to comment on some of the articles that were pubblished in its China Daily newspaper, of corse I used the name “Sammy” and I had the opportunity to express my free opinions which were published immidiately along with other peoples’ comments on a given issue.

   But recently this has changed, and If I place my opinion, it will not be published immidiately, maybe as I have begun to understand, my comments are screaned and if they are not accepted by their censors they will not be published, or the article in question will be taken out.

   So I can conclude that China has changed its policies towards freedom of expression, and tightening its censorship policies, I know that in my past comments I used to be attacked for expressing my free and honest thoughts, in regard to my concepts of free thinking, who knows maybe the Chinese leaders thought that free thinking would wake up their people and adopt it, because this really would have been dangerous for those who still want to keep people in their dark mentality, and to follow their dogmacy.

   Sammy, a universal free thinker
4. Roy G says:

   7 May, 2009 at 12:50 AM

   Welcome back Sammy! I agree, even permitting any Internet access was progressive for mainland Chinese society. I think they will succeed in their efforts for more personal liberties, eventually.

   Back in the ’90′s I remember reading that in Myanmar, owning an unregistered modem would put you in jail for 15 years…

   Eastern cultures tend to be less individualistic and tend to value conformity more, than Western cultures (crude generalization acknowledged…). So they may despise the restrictions slightly less than we would in the West. Still personal liberties are human rights, and the genie is out of the bottle now when it comes to the WWW in China.

   Just as the printing press helped break down the Feudal order in Europe,
   so may the awesome communications & knowledge-base capacities of the Internet, eventually undermine the dictatorships of the modern world.

   I know it caused a lot of problems for the Bush Regime… ;^)
5. Bob says:

   7 May, 2009 at 7:36 PM

   Thanks Roy for picking the post. I like your comparison of printing to internet, I am now indeed feeling that it’s the power of internet in China, a power to wake up people. So glad to see people around care about the lost liberty here.
6. Roy G says:

   9 May, 2009 at 1:24 AM

   Thanks for having the fortitude to write it Bob. Of course hundreds of thousands of Americans and those of many other nationalities, have given their lives in wars, to protect personal liberties like self-determination and free speech & press.

   And while leaders have sometimes started wars with that as a false premise, still, those making the sacrifice believed that is what was at stake. So I’d say yes, many millions in free nations take offense at political repression anywhere.

   But we are in a new century with a new media in the Internet. Indeed the printing press was revolutionary in it’s capacity to spread understanding and propel social change. It created exponentially more reach for progressive ideas, and the advent of the WWW represents at least as
   much of a leap, squared again.

   So we won’t do it with wars now – we’ll just converse across borders, see our common interests as citizens on the same interdependent planet, and compel our leaderships to conform to us instead of the reverse.

   WE are the world, they are our public servants… ;^)
7. RICHARD 323 says:

   9 May, 2009 at 8:44 AM

   The late Milton Friedman said,”The Internet is the most effective instrument we have for globalization,”
   We live in an exponential world and soon everything will be recordable and recoverable. That will spell the end of government as we know it. No more backroom deals, no more secrets. It is coming sooner than you think and you will most likely live to see it.
8. Roy G says:

   10 May, 2009 at 1:24 AM

   Welcome aboard Richard!

   Some fear new government powers in the digital-info age, and oppose the global economy because of negative local impact when economic currents shift.

   I use a wider lens, that holds that it puts us all in one boat economically. We have to trade and cooperate and determine whom is best at what product or service, so we can all add value and take gains from a homogenized and more equalized world economy, that nobody was going
   to stop technology from bringing about anyway.

   We can impede it, or we can embrace it as a catalyst for cooperation and peace IMO.

   And I have similar views to you about the effect of technology on government authority. Yes, they have more bells and whistles to use nefariously, but citizens are far more empowered now than they ever were in previous centuries. We have a platform to speak larger than ever, and
   as you mention, exponentially more capacity to research and document any matter or situation.

   The key is impassioned citizen involvement – which has always been true for securing any type of social progress or justice, of course.
9. admin says:

   16 May, 2009 at 1:20 AM

   China’s Zhao Details Tiananmen Debate
   Posthumous Memoir Castigates Party

   By John Pomfret
   Washington Post Staff Writer
   Friday, May 15, 2009

   Zhao Ziyang violated one of the central tenets of Communist Party doctrine: He spoke out. But it is only now, four years after his death, that the world is hearing what he had to say.

   In a long-secret memoir to be published in English and Chinese next week, just in time for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party claims that the decision to impose martial law around Beijing in May 1989 was illegal and that the party’s leaders could easily have negotiated a peaceful solution to the unrest.

   The posthumous appearance of Zhao’s memoir, which he dictated onto audiotapes and the publisher has titled “Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang,” marks the first time since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China 60 years ago that a senior Chinese leader has spoken out so directly against the party and its system.
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   Reaching from the grave, Zhao pillories a conservative wing of the party for missteps that led to the bloody crackdown, which began after dark on June 3, 1989, and left hundreds dead. Few in China’s leadership at the time escape Zhao’s criticism. He castigates Deng Xiaoping, the man credited with opening China to the West and launching its economic reforms; Li Peng, the dour premier at the time of the Tiananmen tragedy; Deng Liqun, a hard-line party theoretician; Li Xiannian, a former president; and even Hu Yaobang, Zhao’s longtime ally, whose death on April 15, 1989, touched off the student-led protests.

   But Zhao’s memoir also constitutes a broader challenge to the generally accepted version of history, especially in China, that places Deng at the center of the economic reforms that have turned China into a global economic power. While acknowledging that none of the reforms “would have been possible without Deng Xiaoping’s support,” Zhao depicts Deng as more of a benevolent godfather than a hands-on architect. Much of the critical design — such as dismantling agricultural communes, mapping out China’s hugely successful export-led growth model and conjuring up ideological sleights-of-hand that allowed China’s Communists to embrace capitalism — was left to Zhao. In China, Zhao’s role in the momentous economic changes and political events that led up to the Tiananmen crackdown have been airbrushed from history. “Prisoner of the State” is his attempt to place himself back in the picture.

   “Reading Zhao’s unadorned and unboastful account of his stewardship, it becomes apparent that it was he rather than Deng who was the actual architect of reform,” wrote Roderick MacFarquhar, a professor of Chinese history at Harvard University, in a foreword to the book.

   ‘Oblivion Through Silence’

   It has long been known from numerous accounts that Zhao opposed the decision to suppress the student-led demonstrations but was overruled by China’s other top leaders. Purged from his post as general secretary of the Communist Party just days before the crackdown, Zhao spent the next 16 years, until his death in 2005, as the most prominent “nonperson” in the world — “consigned,” as he says in the memoir, “to oblivion through silence.”

   Under virtual house arrest, in 1999 he secretly started making cassette recordings with friends, according to Bao Pu, one of the editors of the memoir for the publisher, Simon & Schuster. Bao Pu is the son of Bao Tong, a top political aide to Zhao who was jailed for six years after the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests. Over the course of a year or so, the younger Bao said in an interview, Zhao recorded roughly 30 tapes in a game of cat-and-mouse with security agents stationed at his home in a courtyard in central Beijing.

   Initially, Zhao made the tapes on the rare occasions he was allowed to leave his home. But that proved perilous, because each time Zhao ventured out, he was wrapped in a security bubble and confronted at his destination by more police. So Zhao continued the project at home, passing completed tapes to trusted visitors. Bao Pu first learned of the tapes following Zhao’s death on Jan. 17, 2005; it took several years to amass all of them and to gain permission from people close to Zhao to publish the memoir, he said.

   “Prisoner of the State” may enrage China’s Communist leaders, who, despite their nation’s economic success, remain vigilant against any potential challenge to the party’s legitimacy. When Zhao died, party leaders convened emergency meetings to ensure that his death would not touch off pro-democracy demonstrations or a renewed debate about the bloodshed at Tiananmen Square. TV and radio were barred from reporting the death. Newspapers could use only a one-sentence obituary that referred to Zhao as “comrade.”

   Party Miscalculations

   Central to Zhao’s memoir is his depiction of Deng, the power behind the opening of China to the West. Zhao describes Deng as a “mother-in-law” riding herd over senior officials constantly battling for his attention, particularly during the nasty and often petty competition between China’s leaders in the run-up to the Tiananmen crackdown.

   China’s official explanation of the bloodshed is that, with hundreds of thousands of people occupying the central square in Beijing, the situation bordered on chaos and the party had no real choice but to clear the square by force. Zhao’s counterpunch is that bumbling moves by the hard-liners, led by Li Peng, created the chaos.

   Following Hu Yaobang’s death on April 15, 1989, students who believed that conservatives in the party had unfairly treated the more liberal Hu began demonstrating. Zhao took a soft line against the protests and, he says in the book, they started to die down. Then, on April 26, while Zhao was visiting North Korea, Li Peng masterminded a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee during which Li and others convinced Deng that the protests threatened the party. Li then ordered publication of an editorial in the People’s Daily that termed the protests “premeditated and organized turmoil with anti-Party and anti-socialist motives.”

   Li thought the editorial would cower participants, Zhao says. Instead, “those who were moderate before were then forced to take sides with the extremists,” and the marches ballooned to more than 10,000 people in Beijing and spread nationwide. On his return to China, Zhao attempted to make peace with the protesters, offering dialogue with student groups and the establishment of a special commission to investigate corruption charges.

   But, Zhao says, “Li Peng and others in his group actively attempted to block, delay and even sabotage the process.”

   Zhao requested a meeting with Deng to try to convince China’s leader that they needed to retract the April 26 editorial. On May 17, he went to Deng’s home, thinking it was going to be a private meeting. Instead, the whole Politburo Standing Committee was present. Zhao advocated modifying the editorial. President Yang Shangkun suggested imposing martial law. Ultimately, Deng decided on martial law; there was no vote, according to Zhao.

   The question of whether the Politburo’s five-member Standing Committee took a vote is the only place where Zhao’s version of events clashes significantly with the one provided in “The Tiananmen Papers,” a collection of party documents published in 2001 that is considered the most definitive previous account of the crackdown. “The Tiananmen Papers” reported that there was a split vote of 2 to 2, with one abstention, and that retired Communist Party leaders were called in to decide.

   Zhao’s contention is that because there was no vote, the crackdown was illegal, even by the party’s own rules. And once again, he notes, the hard-liners around Li Peng miscalculated. The martial law declaration prompted even bigger protests.

   “A more intense confrontation was made inevitable,” Zhao says. “On the night of June 3rd while sitting in the courtyard with my family, I heard intense gunfire. A tragedy to shock the world had not been averted, and was happening after all.”

   © Copyright 1996- 2009 The Washington Post Company
10. KeHoeff says:

    28 May, 2009 at 5:21 PM

    hey this is a very interesting article!
11. johnny hempseed/Corporate States of Amerika says:

    27 June, 2009 at 3:09 PM

    Late comment but this was a great post thanks Bob and commentors.There really is no true annominity any more ,my handle for example was origional in 1970.Now I have an extended family with hundreds of Hempseeds sowing thier seeds of discent on blogs everywhere! Kinda cool but it would be easy to determine who I was if one tried . I understand that in China now anti pornography software with browsing filters are going to be standard fare in all new ‘puters.Sort of filters which will dissable any sites the government doesn’t approve of not just porn.Along with new advances in communication tech and cyberspace allowing a global forum and free dissemination of ideas come new means of invading privacy and enhanced surveilance capability.Cameras everywhere and GPS microchips with RF devices in Passport licenses and consumer goods it is like Orwell meets Buck Rogers ,and Bernays on steroids.I hope that the internet stays free of charge and free for all.It seems some sites have become a nasty “free for all” with no civility or manners,just nasty trolls venting anger.
    peace
12. Roy G says:

    3 July, 2009 at 1:10 AM

    Reposted from BBC.co.uk

    —

    30 June 2009 15:54 UK

    Anger in China over web censorship

    China has delayed a plan requiring all new computers sold in the country to be equipped with internet filtering software. The Green Dam software has become a major topic of discussion in the blogosphere. The BBC’s Krassimira Twigg looks at what bloggers and netizens have had to say about it.

    Internet censorship has been one of the most widely discussed subjects in blogs, message forums and social media networks in China over the past month.

    Web policing was tightened up around the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown on 4 June, resulting in the temporary blocking of Twitter and other websites.

    Before things could settle down, China announced plans for a new filtering software to be introduced on new PCs from 1 July. The Green Dam Youth Escort software was created to stop people viewing “offensive” content such as pornographic or violent websites.

    While the blocking of websites around the 4 June was not unexpected, or unprecedented, the new software has created quite a stir in the blogosphere.

    The Green Dam fast became one of the top topics on Twitter. One Twitterer observed: “Chinese netizens are tolerant of censorship in the clouds, but Green Dam crosses the line and becomes surveillance of personal space. The government has miscalculated.”

    Blacklisted words

    Chinese internet users have started to collect and analyse information about Green Dam.

    Articles about the “leaking dam” appeared in a number of blogs. The paradox is, bloggers observed, that the software, which analyzes skin tones, will block Garfield kittens, as they are yellow, but it won’t be able to recognise pornographic images of dark-skinned people.

    A list of the software’s filtered words was unlocked by computer security experts at the University of Michigan. Blogger Fang Zhouzi, writing for Danwei , is baffled by some of the choices.

    “The list includes common terms like “essence”. I can’t even imagine what “essence” counts as. Green Dam monitors word processing in addition to internet. So does this mean that from now on the word “essence” can no longer appear in school essays, textbooks and dictionaries?” he says.

    PR executive Steven Lin shares the general conviction that the purpose of the software is rather more sinister than it claims to be and that it will block legitimate websites.

    “There are interesting words in Green Dam’s blacklist. The word “gay” for example. Every time you open a web page including this word, the browser will immediately shut down. I think this is just too aggressive,” he says.

    With discussion on censorship increasing, blogs, Twitter and message boards have become a platform for exchanging tips on how to outsmart the censors.

    Frank Yu, executive of a mobile game development company, thinks the Chinese netizens of today are much more savvy than they used to be.

    “They are more sophisticated and have tools of their own like Human Flesh searches and an intricate vocabulary of code words and slang to fool the censors. The latest attempts to control the net are a desperate last gasp by the censors using yesterday’s techniques.”

    Most Chinese internet users are educated and apolitical, willing to tolerate a limited amount of censorship.

    Frank Yu thinks that the government’s latest, more vigorous, attempts to censor the web are starting to create a backlash.

    “Netizens don’t care if you block the BBC or New York Times – this doesn’t affect them. But install crapware on their computers, deny them web services like Hotmail and Gmail and they become vocal and angry to a degree I haven’t seen before.”

    ‘Laughing stock’

    Radio talk show host David Feng thinks that Green Dam is part of a wider clean-up campaign ahead of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic in October.

    “Green Dam is part of the huge clean-up before the boss comes to inspect. It’s a case of a bad PR for the folks in charge,” he says.

    “They are doing this just for the big 60. Cleaning up of the trash in the real world might work, but the moment you hit the wires – that’s a different story.”

    Other critics have used humour and art to mock the software, creating cartoon images of the “Green Dam Girl”.

    In2marcom has put together a gallery of the manga-style cartoon and the Green Dam Girl has a fan site in Facebook.

    For Steven Lin, Green Dam is more of a nuisance than a formidable challenge.

    “I don’t really view it as a Big Brother who’s watching everyone. It’s a stupid software which doesn’t work the right way. What annoys me it that it costs 40 million yuan (US $5.85 million) of Chinese taxpayers’ money. Nobody asked us if we want it. It’s insane.”

    David Feng thinks it’s another hassle savvy young people can easily work their way around.

    “Green Dam is not being taken seriously at all. The Twitter stream is full of parodies and jokes. What do we have here – something that won’t succeed in stomping out porn, that was designed to scare us but has instead become a laughing stock.”

    BBC © MMIX
13. johnny hempseed/Corporate States of Amerika says:

    3 July, 2009 at 12:50 PM

    Roy G. Thanks for the update .I am glad they backed off for now.Web filters and search engine flags could be a way to stiffle discent. peace