Category: China – Domestic Affairs

Chinese Internet Censorship

The results of an undercover study:

Surprisingly, posts that criticized China's government, its leaders, and its policies, as well as those about sensitive topics such as Tibet, were generally allowed to be published. "Criticisms turn out to be of tremendous value to China's leaders," says lead study author Gary King, a social scientist at Harvard University. "They are a great way of figuring out who's not doing a good job, of seeing which of the roughly 50,000 local governments is being led in a way that is not satisfying people and keeping them in check." 

However, posts that mention collective action such as a gathering or protest are often censored, even if they support the government. 

"When citizens are able to act collectively in one arena, such as supporting the government, that means they could act collectively in other contexts as well, and the state wants to limit people getting together outside of state control," Pan says. King noted this helped the Chinese government "keep a monopoly on mass action. They don't want someone with the power to move people unless it's the government." 

Hat tip: Instapundit

Seven Unpeople At Taiwan’s China Post

Profiles of seven of China's most prominent political dissidents.

Oddly enough, there's never been much mention of them in the pages of the China Post – a paper which styles itself as Taiwan's "Chinese nationalist" newspaper.

Perhaps they ran all out of ink after printing David Kan Ting's numerous fawning columns about Communist princeling Bo Xilai…

Tiananmen Square Massacre

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Black and white photo of Chinese next to their bicycles after being crushed by tanks at Tiananmen Square.

Image of the Tiananmen Square Massacre from the New York Times

The New York Times has an interesting detail I was not aware of:

…top army commanders were summoned to headquarters to pledge their support for the use of military force to quash the protests.

One refused.

In a stunning rebuke to his superiors, Maj. Gen. Xu Qinxian, leader of the mighty 38th Group Army, said the protests were a political problem and should be settled through negotiations, not force, according to new accounts of his actions from researchers who interviewed him.

“I’d rather be beheaded than be a criminal in the eyes of history,” he told Yang Jisheng, a historian.

i-1

Communist China Leans On Western Media To Spike Unfavorable Coverage

Zhongnanhai frowns upon exposes of Princeling corruption:

Mr. Winkler defended his decision [not to publish an investigative report about Chinese Communist Party corruption], comparing it to the self-censorship by foreign news bureaus trying to preserve their ability to report inside Nazi-era Germany, according to Bloomberg employees familiar with the discussion.

Sinofascism is not a dinner party.