Just when you think you fully comprehend the Chinese government's iron-grip censorship on the Internet and media, Beijing plays a card that surprises -- even dazzles -- the blogosphere.
Call this the twenty-first century Hawthorne Effect: A blogger -- named Ai Mi, though that is believed to be a pseudonym -- starts by putting up some blogs on a Chinese language site that portray a tragic love story that takes place during the yet more tragic Cultural Revolution, the 1965 to 1968 social and political upheaval unleashed by Mao, who aimed to bring a proletarian revolution in a China that was increasingly consumerist in his eyes.
To correct that -- and to humble the emerging management/technocrat elite -- Mao unleashed a wave of youth, the Red Guards, who challenged the proletarian authenticity of just about everybody. Fail the test and you could be in for a long stay in a corrective prison.
It was a period of immense ugliness, and a period utterly in contrast to today's China, which has created so many billionaires it now is second only to the US in the Forbes count of the super-rich.
Even so, the Ai Mi blogs -- now known as Under the Hawthorn Tree -- caught on in China, seemingly with tacit government approval. The author even won a traditional book publishing contract and has now sold over one million books in China alone. She also has inked deals for publication in some 15 countries, according to press reports.
This is stunning in a country that has a longstanding history of persistent and pervasive censorship, facts highlighted just this week as critics cautioned against too much jubilation in response to China's announcement
that it now has over 500 million Internet users. The number is valid, but critics quickly pointed out that the Internet Chinese users experience is far from free -- a reality the government readily admits.
"We are willing to work with countries and communicate with them on the development of the Internet and to work together to promote the sound development of the Internet," China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters at a press conference last year. "But we do not accept using the excuse of 'Internet freedom' to interfere in other countries' internal practices."
Yet there is the government's apparent acceptance of Under the Hawthorn Tree. How can this be?
For one thing, the author has cleverly clung to anonymity. Press reports
say Ai Mi lives in Florida and is in her 50s or 60s (meaning she is old enough to have seen firsthand the Cultural Revolution). But for all we know, Ai Mi may be a man in his 30s living in San Francisco. We just do not know; and in that anonymity there is little for the Chinese government to get vexed about. The author could even be an agent of the Chinese military.
Does the success of Under the Hawthorn Tree augur a loosening of China's suffocating hold on the Internet and the nation's printing presses? (Wouldn't that be pretty to think!) But there is not a shred of evidence to suggest anything of the kind has happened.
This is a critical story about Chinese politics. Think about it: What could be more at odds with today's China -- a wealth-focused country where Western luxury goods
are the status symbols du jour -- than the Cultural Revolution?
Anna Holmwood, the English translator, told the Guardian newspaper that the novel "doesn't present a problem for the Chinese government." She said: "If you were to take a particular political line about the Cultural Revolution, that might be problematic. But nowadays people are very open about talking about what a terrible time it was."
But watch: The pro China spinmeisters will busy themselves pointing to the English language version of the book
-- and a movie that is slated to come to screens near us -- as proof of a loosening of censorship inside China.
Believe that and, yes, I have a Great Wall to sell you.
— Robert McGarvey has been online and writing about the Internet for nearly 25 years.
To read media outside the Middle KIngdom, you might believe that the internet in China is a shadow of its wetern self. Such is not the case! I travel to China frequently and I hardly ever notice sites not being available. Yes it's true there is no Facebook and Youtube but somehow I survive without them. Google, Yahoo, Skype all work the way we are used to. Most Chinese netizens do know how to access the restricted sites anyway.
Thank you for pointing out that it's not that black and white.
I live in China now and I keep telling that I love this country and I admire people and yes, I respect their government especially comparing with the Russian one.Yes, here is cencorship, but honestly, if you want to find something out- you will and if you want to leave the country- you will.
But here, instead of blaming the past leaders like Russians do( hey, the communist regim was terrible but now we are changing everything), here they admit, that mistakes were made, and they are not proud of Cultural Revolution- they just try to fix the consequences. For example, they keep investing in educational system- my cousin teaches in Shantou University- a small ( relatively to China of course- about 4 mln people:) city, and she says that they have a very strong international faculty, because the conditions of teaching are just great.Nobody really wants to leave the place- though there is nothing really to do except of working( the city is not culturelly developed)
Of course, there are many problems here:poverty, low educationl level in agricultural regions, but... I lived in the States and I can tell you, that in general, people here are much more happier.Not cynical, not cloyed-and I live in Shanghai- which is the biggest, the most expensive, the most commercial city in China.
USA media messages is the same propaganda as Chinese goverment's messages.
Only here, they are told, that China is the best country in the world, and in the States, it is " the worst" country in the world.
Obviously, it would be better if every nation could learn from every other nations' mistakes and improve the world overall... but somehow it doesn't seem to work like that. The way economic growth is currently set up, pollution is an externality to most businesses that needs to involve govt regulation before it is curbed. Perhaps China is actually in a slightly better position than democratic nations b/c its govt can just mandate that half the cars stop driving (such as it did before the Olympics in Beijing). But it's hard to maintain 7-8% GDP growth and at the same time try to install environmental protection policies that can't be drafted in a short amount of time.... Perhaps we need more of the Bhutanese "Gross National Happiness" to be involved in our economic calculations.
In China. A mob pelted a Beijing Apple store with eggs as the company said its five authorized outlets in China had sold out of the iPhone 4S and it was suspending sales for safety reasons.
I've been a bit confused about what I read about China's "anti" internet stance. Although they do monitor closely and close off entrance to certain web pages, I have oddly been able to speak candidly with Chinese students over Google+ Hangouts quite frequently.
While the students I speak with have some restraint in what they say, more like a polite and civilized conversation should be among strangers, they have not shyed away from giving their opinions of things they would like to see differently.
Unless China has devised a great strategy of getting students on social media with Americans, I would think things are not so black and white as we hear in the U.S. press.
Try a Google hangout about anytime of the day or night and you are likely to run across some Chinese folk to chat with.
Your mention of "So why should China" saddens me. I would hope that as well as learning good stuff that people would learn from the mistakes of other countries. We are all on the same rock.
China didn't want to spread any news against its administration. More over they don't wants people to share news and happenings through social Medias. I think they are sensearing even Email from quiet sometimes back.
DreamChaser, I don't think they even have to worry about pollution... it's not like the US worried about pollution until relatively recently, so why should China?
Official figures show that China's consumer spending is currently only one-fifth of that in America (although that may be understated because of China's poor statistical coverage of services). Based on relative growth rates over the past five years it will remain smaller until 2023. Retail sales are catching up much faster, and could exceed America's by 2014. In that same year China also looks set to become the world's biggest importer—a huge turnaround from 2000, when America's imports were six times those of China.
What about GDP, the most widely used measure of economic power? The IMF predicts that China's GDP will surpass America's in 2016 if measured on a purchasing-power parity (PPP) basis, which adjusts for the fact that prices are lower in poorer countries. But America will only really be eclipsed when China's GDP outstrips it in dollar terms, converted at market-exchange rates.
Our best guess is that annual real GDP growth over the next decade averages 7.75% in China (down from 10.5% over the past decade) and 2.5% in America; that inflation (as measured by the GDP deflator) averages 4% and 1.5% respectively; and that the yuan appreciates by 3% a year. If so, then China will overtake America in 2018. That is a year earlier than our prediction in December 2010 because China's GDP in dollar terms increased by more than expected in 2011.
Someday, China will have the biggest GDP and be the largest economy in the world . . Well if they don't pollute and poison themselves to death first perhaps. Massive water and air pollution issues. China has 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities.
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The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
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Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
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