Learn Chinese by studying censorship

Since 2003, I have been listening to Radio Free Asia's "A week in China", which features news censored in China. I have learned a lot about China, and improved my aural comprehension. Here are some recent expressions

Tiger Trends

Hong Kong Dongxiang (Trends) magazine, which is censored on the mainland, regularly critices the Chinese Communist Party. Many of the commentaries, which are written in Chinese by Chinese commentators, are trenchant and insightful. The strength of criticism usually outstrips anything found in the human rights community, which tries to be objective, and could be said to self-censor itself to avoid accusations of bias and chauvinism. Here is a commentary on the Chinese Year of the Tiger, which began in January. Unfortunately, there is no English language version, so I will attempt to translate some articles. Here is one from earlier this year, which claims that China's internal authoritarianism may result in external aggression.

Tiger Year Tiger Talk

Everywhere you go in China you can see attractive decorative displays of toy tigers, and apart from wishing everybody a happy year of the Tiger, we would also like to say we hope that in the New Year, China will become more amiable and more worthy of respect and not more detestable, terrifying and repulsive.
Decorative tigers are cute and lovely, but a nation which is seen as a tiger is terrifying. Both for China and for the world, the stronger such a country becomes, the greater the disaster. The fascist regimes of the 20th century are an example of this: not only did they bring disaster to the world, but in the end they also destroyed themselves.

After 30 years of reform and opening up, China is greatly changed, the economy has taken off and and quality of life is clearly improved and consequently the country has taken an important role on the international stage. This has been the dream of many Chinese for over a hundred years.
But advanced Chinese people want more than this. The revolutionary pioneers represented by Sun Yatsen called for the Three People's Principles and even the Chinese Communist Party swears by and strives to realise this political principle. But has it been achieved to them date? No, it has not. Today, not only is democratic freedom an empty phrase, even the CCP's much loved and repeated mantra of "Rule by Law" actually just means that the Communist party uses the Law to rule the people, while the powerholders themselves are above the law.
Despite signing international covenant on human rights, these have not been put into practice, and Chinese leaders have even made statements rejecting the universal values of democracy and freedom, rejected the tripartite division of powers and said that China is different. How can the Chinese leaders be so ignorant? It's shocking.
China is on the road to modernisation, and is truly rising in the global village. But modernising and rising are all very well. If you don't have freedom and democracy you will not be allowed into the court room of human civilisation. No matter how many shiny tall buildings, fast rail ways, gleaming airports, advanced missile systems, what matters most is the state of your people. Are your people free, do they have dignity? can they think freely, express themselves freely, make free choices? Are people equal? the People's Republic has been in existence for 60 years, but the power of the Communist party was seized with violence from the hands of the Nationalist party. The Chinese people never authorised the Communist party to exercise power. In order to maintain the party dictatorship, this party keeps tight control of the military, and still uses the slogan "the Party's absolute leadership of the military". From the point of view of the Chinese people, it's the private army of the Communist party, which" takes orders from the party" - this was one of the slogans formed by people's bodies during the 60th anniversary celebrations in Tiananmen Square. This does not smack of modernity.

Ever since the establishment of the People's Republic, the Commons party has monopolised society's resources, concentrated all power in its own hands, and its role has spread into every corner of society, so that the People's Republic has become a pyramid shaped machine. Because economic political and military power are highly concentrated in the party's hands and the party has never been authorised by the people and is not supervised by the people, and since the Party's power is concentrated in the hands of its leaders and the leadership is chosen by its predecessors, this kind of system inevitably creates a hotbed of dictatorship. Anybody who gets to the top of this pyramid can exercise absolute power; that's why Mao Zedong was able to launch the Cultural Revolution and why Deng Xiaoping was able to terminate political reform in the 1990s with his " four principles" speech

As China rises, the Chinese Communist Party is starting to resemble a tiger. As internal repression increases, it is throwing its weight around internationally. Diplomacy Is the extension of the internal affairs, and war is the extension of politics, as the sayings go.
It's inevitable that as the nation's power increases, it will put pressure on other countries. If it cannot achieve its ends peacefully war is inevitable. The Chinese Communist Party is inflaming nationalist fanaticism and only fascist regimes do this.
Nationalistic fanaticism reached a peak in 2008, but in order to raise the temperature this high, the country invested a huge amount and which was really excessive. Last year, with the military parades celebrating 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, the Chinese Communist party showed its true face. All that advanced new military hardware was there only to show the world China's military prestige. What kind of message were they sending?
It was the face of the tiger!

We hope that our interpretation is wrong, and that our concerns are unnecessary!

Happy Year of the Tiger!

Dong Xiang editor Zhang Weiguo can also be heard weekly on Radio Free Asia's Zhongguoyizhou ( a week in China )

Is China teaching the world to censor?

In recent years, economic and political ties have blossomed between Brazil and China. China has replaced the US as Brazil's largest trading partner. Both countries have leaders who see the US as hegemon to be contained and are suspicious or US foreign policy intentions. According to a recent WSJ article citing Human Rights Watch, in international forums, China and Brazil have both undermined attempts to sanctions human rights abusers, arguing that this infringes national sovereignty. President Lula of Brazil is friendly with Fidel Castro, and has defended the Cuban leader's imprisonment of dissidents.
Now a new report from Google shows that Brazil leads the world in government censorship demands, and yesterday China's Communist Party propaganda newspaper the China Daily featured this in another barely disguised attack on Google, which it says has broken it's promise to censor search results in China.
When censuring Google's Orkut, the Brazilian courts have also noted the example of Google's censorship in China, saying in effect: "Google will censor for China, why won't it censor for us?" .
Nobody is saying that the media takes its orders from the government in Brazil as it does in China. But China's influence on Brazil, indeed on the world, is worrying.

Shanghai Expo, another excuse for censorship

Once again, another big showcase event is turning out to be an excuse to censor dissidents. This reminds one of the big crack down during the Olympics, when dissidents were taken away by police, and old ladies were arrested for applying for a permit to demonstrate in a park designated for demonstrations
According to today's Apple Newspaper, Shanghai lawyer Feng Zhenghu had been planning an "exhibition" of 12 miscarriages of justice to coincide with the Expo. Police questioned him for four hours yesterday, and confiscated four of his computers, as well as his scanner and other equipment. They even took away the modem supplied by his ISP. Their reason: he has "Slandered people".
Police told Feng to learn from the example of Gao Zhisheng, who has finally given up his legal advocacy after repeated arrests, detention, death threats and torture, which included toothpicks stuck through his testicles.
What an intelligent use of public funds. I am sure it will help to promote the reputation of Shanghai and ensure the success of the Shanghai Expo.
Last year, Feng was denied entry to China after visiting Japan, and forced to spend weeks in Narita Airport.

Animated gifs: a way around Censorship

If you stare at this long enough, a message will be revealed, or should, with some a sensitive statement about June 4th and Tiananmen.
Could this be an anti-censorship strategy?
Inside the great fire wall? view it here

From the mouths of babes

According to a post on yahoo.cn, school children whose colleagues were murdered by a serial killer said: "why do you have to slaughter children, why not kill a few corrupt officials instead".
This reminds me the online support for Yang Jia, who become a popular hero after murdering six policeman in a knife attack at a Shanghai police station.

The best form of censorship is to kill

The best form of censorship is death. What more effective than to sentence to death a person who knows too much about corruption, government mafia etc.
Maybe this is what really happened to Wen Qiang, the former head of the judiciary of Chongqing. The 13 million yuan he is said to have taken is not much these days. Many have received lesser sentences for smaller amounts. And apparently the money was invested in a government owned bank.
China doesn't really have a legal system it seems. Important cases are decided for political reasons, in this case to shut the mouth of someone who knew too much

Video about the Great Fire Wall in China ( and Australia)

China increases internet surveillance

The New York Times reports on the opening of yet another government bureau to police the internet.

Here is the Hong Kong Apple Daily Chinese report
內地進一步監控互聯網。國務院新聞辦公室證實近日設立「互聯網新聞協調局」（第九局），專門監控微博、論壇、影片分享網站等。新部門已派員出席各種會議及培訓班。互聯網新聞從業員稱，增設第九局後，監管互聯網的人手會相應增加，監管力度會比以前更嚴格。
國新辦的新安排已實施數星期，原國新辦網絡局（第五局）仍然分管內地網站及國際媒體宣傳，新設的互聯網新聞協調局（第九局）則會負責「網絡文化建設、管理、協調、督促等工作」，為互動論壇新聞把關。第九局局長，由原來第五局副局長彭波出任。

Censored: Sports Sponsorship in China

This is an article which I wrote for Business Forum China in August 2009. Business Forum is published in China and sold abroad, so it comes under external propaganda guidance, which seems to be stricter than internal. Apparently the Shanghai Propaganda Bureau tends to come down hard on the magazine about once a year, around this time; maybe to do with the June 4th anniversary run-up?
Anyway, my article was not allowed to be published in any form.
Here it is: http://www.stephen-t.com/200_million_NBA_fans.doc
Nothing really subversive, just noting that the development of the market for sponsorship is limited by state control of the media.

Jumping the Great Fire Wall with Freegate

Last year my version of Freegate stopped working, now I think I know why. I was using a made-in-China anti virus software, and apparently all such software is designed to "protect" against agents such as Freegate. It constantly updates itself, so you have to keep on updating your verion of freegate, or it will block freegate. To solve this problem, you need to use foreign-made anti-virus software. Although apparently, that might leave you open to risk from Chinese viruses, which are not on the foreign databases yet. So you may need to sweep your computer with a Chinese made one from time to time, with Freegate turned off, to catch these.

What you can say in China

You can say a lot, like this list of problems for example:

中国的贪官之多，准为世界第一，虽然没有精确数据，想来亦无大错。- China is world champion corruption
中国的官吏数量，是世界第一。4000多万公务人员，放到世界上，是一个不少的国家。 China has more bureaucrats than any other country; 40000000
中国的行政成本，也是世界第一。最近几十年来，财政收入增长28倍，而行政费用从不到50亿扩张到近万亿，增长了上百倍。China's administration is the most expensive
中国的公款消费，铁定世界第一。国家信息中心的统计数据显示，2004年度，公款吃喝3700亿，公车消费3986亿，公款出境旅游2400亿，三项合计已逾万亿大关，占当年财政收入的40%。Official expenses consume 40% of government spending, or 398600000000 yuan per year
中国的事故数量、死亡数量，是世界第一。China has the most accidents and death from accidents
弄虚作假，搞“山寨版”，肯定也是世界第一。China is the world number one for fakery and piracy

What you can't do is say that all these problems are caused by the one party dictatorship.


I got this while I was reading about a new book called Zhongguo Meng,http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4fc406940100h0h4.html?tj=1 (China Dream), which is by a professor at a military school in China. The book includes some of the usual myths about China's peaceful rise, eg China has never invaded another country. This statement never fails to astonish me, especially from someone who should know better. I call it the victim myth

China-Brazil relations, amnesia or ingratitude?

Nothing is stranger and more remarkable in the world of international relations and alliances than the recent cosying up Brazil's new democracy in the post dictatorship era with the people's dictatorship of China. How can Brazil's leaders, who themselves were persecuted socialist dissidents in their youth, identify so closely with a party-state which has abandoned socialism while maintaining dictatorship with censorship, propaganda and repression? The answer lies in the shared opposition to US hegemony, more than infatuation with China's "model".

China's ruling CCP has a long history of "exploiting contradictions" between its foes and making alliances with the enemies of its enemies. For example, following the 1960 Sino-Soviet split, China fostered proxy wars to undermine the Soviet Union's influence in Angola, by funding the UNITA guerilla army, which was then fighting the Soviet backed government in Luanda. Similarly, China's reluctance to sanction Iran can be understood as support for a proxy who is pushing back against the US, and this support is only limited by China's realistic assessment of it's continued weakness in relation to the US led anti nuclear proliferation alliance.
Another example of this could be seen in China's relations with Europe in the last decade, which it tended to value more, and tended to improve, during conflicts with the US. Growing assertiveness on China's part is leading to a closer US-Europe relationship, as the two sides find themselves more frequently on the same side in disputes with China

Brazil's leaders also see value in alliances with countries which share their hostility to US foreign policy and its Monroe doctrine. This hostility springs from their experience in their youth of repressive dictatorship which was supported by was CIA, which was well documented at the time by Philip Agee and others. CIA support was crucial in undermining other democratically elected governments in Chile, Argentina and other places, where they were replaced by authoritarian dictatorships which ignored human rights far more than China does today. In Brazil, several hundred people were murdered in a few years. It was this failed policy which led Brazil's socialist leaders to their current cynicism towards of US human rights advocacy, and their friendly relationships with China, as well as Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and others. The negative repercussions of earlier US policy in its "back yard" are still being felt in the South America.

China on the other hand is always quick to take advantage of antagonism towards the US, and it uses this effectively in its government propaganda. Propaganda has been a hallmark of Communist Party's "fight for hearts and minds" ever since the birth of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920, and before that in the Bolshevik experience of information use, from which they learned this method. To this they added the traditional shrewdness of Chinese strategy, which is well known in the west through Sunzi's "Art of War" - disinformation has a long history in China, and religion has never exerted a moral deterrence against lying to the extent it has in Northern Europe since the protestant reformation. As early western travellers such as Lord Macartney noted, their is no shame in lying in China. The same could be said for the Catholic religion, where all is forgiven at confession.

When Hu Jintao visited Brazil in 2005, Brazil opened its market to China in the hope of political support for its bid to join the UN security council. The gesture, which cost Brazil thousands of jobs, was not reciprocated. Indeed, no advanced country has recognised China as a market economy, because this means giving up the right to take action against dumping in the WTO. And China is clearly not a fully market economy - the Communist Party-State has a monopoly of the main industries there. So why did Brazil make such a wasteful concession to China with no guarantee of return?
It could be that Brazil's leaders just do not understand China - they have not done their homework. Unlike Europe, North American and Japan, South America has no sinologists, no university courses in Chinese Studies, few Chinese language courses or exchange programs with Chinese universities. So when Itamarity needs advice on China policy, they have no home-grown expertise to turn to for advice.
But it could be that even with such advise on hand, Lula would still push for his grand alliance regardless of cost. He seems to share with the Chinese a love of making large wasteful displays. Witness his recent emotion on winning the Olympic Games, even though he must know this is equivalent of pouring gasoline on the endemic fire of Brazilian corruption, and even though Brazil desperately needs to increase spending on more important things, such as health and education.
Ultimately, it seems that Lula has no gratitude - gratitude for the forces of Democracy which brought him to power. He began his career in an era of military dictatorship, without free elections, and with press censorship, when dissidents and activists were routinely abducted, tortured and even killed by the Brazilian police. Without the democratic rule which was won in the 1980s, he would never have come to power. So why is he now allying his country with China, which leads the world in censorship, repression and authoritarian rule? Does he have no sympathy for the hundreds of people who are in jail in China because they tried to get compensation for their injured children, or because they organized a petition, or because they sent an email to a foreigner? Brazil's alliance with China undermines the forces of democracy which brought Lula power. So Lula must have a short memory, or no sense of gratitude.
It seems last year's visit to China was impressive more for Lula's claims than for real progress:

The Man Who did not Change China

Sometimes foreigners help the CCP with it's Censorship and propaganda. Today at the bookshop at Hong Kong Airport I leafed through a book called "How China's Leaders Think" by a guy I guy called Kuhn. Apparently he also wrote another book about Jiang Zemin which was a hit in China.
I used to see this book on sale all over China, "Jiang Zemin, the man who changed China", and I never bought it, because it looked like sycophantic propaganda to me.
For me, Jiang Zemin was the guy who missed the chance to change China, the guy who kept China the same, postponing political reform, allowing China's problems of corruption snd pollution, to rise and rise, while allowing China's health and medical systems to decay.
Zhao Ziyang's book "Prisoner of the State", is more interesting. It was secretly recorded while under house arrest because he did not support the repression of the democracy movement.
Zhao could have gone along with the repression like Jiang, but unlike Jiang, he didn't want to go down in history as a Premier who had supported the massacre of its own people. He said he "had a responsibility to history".
I think a more interesting book from Kuhn would be "Why the leaders of China don't think".
Kuhn says he is critical of China but I had a look at the section on corruption in his latest book: in it, he says that the leaders are very concerned about corruption. Of course there are, they are concerned to keep it going, as their sons and daughters are all making a lot of money out of it.

Global Online Freedom Act of 2007

This law

To promote freedom of expression on the Internet, to protect United States businesses from coercion to participate in repression by authoritarian foreign governments, and for other purposes.

never became Law

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-275

Here is some stuff I have been looking at today

This is the site of veteran libertarian campaigner Long Hair http://www.longhair.hk/

Flatter world and thicker walls? Blogs, censorship and civic discourse in China, a paper by Rebecca MacKinnon, available at

Flatter world and thicker walls? Blogs, censorship and civic discourse in China:
http://books.google.com/books?id=I-95XzS7l8QC&lpg=PP1&dq=china%20internet&pg=PT4#v=onepage&q=&f=false


http://bbs1.people.com.cn/ The forum of the People's Daily

China's Communist Party: atrophy and adaptation By David L. Shambaugh, argues that the Propaganda system is both atrophying and adapting to the pressures of globalization, marketization, pleuralization and new technology: http://books.google.com/books?id=IOW6msgYWzwC&lpg=PR10&ots=PruY1JFwtB&dq=censorship%20shambaugh&lr=&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

My blog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/5tm74, when will they censor it?
http://www.rsf.org/List-of-the-13-Internet-enemies.html

http://www.duihua.org/

http://www.irrepressible.info/addcontent, an Amnesty International project to subvert censorship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=288 freedom of the press reports up to 2006 only

He Qinlian www.hrichina.org/public/PDFs/CRF.../CRF-2006-2_MediaControlChina.pdf

There are some new books on censorship in China on amazon but I can't find anything about them or the authors.

EG More book information
Title Internet Censorship in the People's Republic of China: Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, Internet Police, Internet Forum, Golden Shield Project, Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China
Editors Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome, John McBrewster
Publisher Alphascript Publishing, 2009
ISBN 613004531X, 9786130045319
Length 96 pages

New I am very angry blog on Sina

My sina blog http://blog.sina.com.cn/5tm74 has not been censored yet. Today posted this feminist comment:
我是个怒女奴。 中国是个重男轻女的是社会， 自古女人是奴隶，奴词根也来之女。奴隶要愤怒，不怒就没有心!

a few links about censorship in China

http://www.hudong.com/wiki/古鸽http://www.ifj.org/en/articles/ifj-report-lists-chinas-secret-bans-on-media-reportinghttp://www.rsf.org/spip.php?page=article&id_article=36677http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/26/china.astroturf/