ChinaWatch: Life behind the firewall of fear

Al says:

08:43am | 14/05/12

Why would anyone think censorship of the web won’t happen in Australia?
After all it is still part of Labors policy (the internet filter). It was never removed, just put on the backburner.
And of course once in there is no group of politicians who would remove it, after all one of the best ways to control how people vote is to control what information they can access. (Why vote against something if everything you have read/seen is only focusing on possible positives with no mention of any negatives?)
At the moment (in Aus) the authorities are required to get warrants etc to track a persons web activity, to not do so is a breach of privacy laws. However once legislation is approved they can do what they like. (Of course this doesn’t prevent them accessing any material that is publicly available.)
The USA has issues with the fact that it has so much data being collected that it can’t be reviewed in a timely manner and possible threats identified. They may have the data, but the majority of the time they haven’t identified any issue due to the massive amount. (Mind you, anyone stupid enough to say they are going to ‘bomb’ something, even as a joke, in the USA its just asking for trouble under their current laws and policies.)

MarkS says:

08:52am | 14/05/12

It happens here, but is less obtrusive. To “protect the children” or “aid working families” or “stop outlaw bikies” or “prevent terrorists” of course. Big Brother is watching you.

It is impossible to walk down the street in a major urban area without being on video, have a mobile phone & you are capable of being tracked. Software is developed to search for patterns to locate our master’s latest pet hate by sorting the wheat of their “dangerous” activity from the chaff of people posting about their pussies.

Slowly but surely we are slipping to a world we everything we do is monitored & laws are passed outlawing everything not outright allowed. To protect us? Yea right. That is until you fail to conform.

year of the dragon says:

11:06am | 14/05/12

There’s a difference between censoring something and monitoring it.

Scotty Mac says:

11:43am | 14/05/12

Amazing I have lived in Asia for many years, and when you live in someone else’s country you obey their laws. Drugs into Bali, Graffiti on walls in Singapore.  No one cares if they do not have Facebook or Twitter for Twits. I am reading and replying to this naive introverted rubbish on the internet in China. Until you have lived in another country, keeps your inane comments to yourself. China internet is more liberal than you will ever know until you can read and write Chinese. Check out CCTV English Channel see international news. There are 140 cable TV channels in China. There are 450M internet users and 600M mobile users. China internet services are many years ahead of Australia in many respects. Australia Labor are trying to impose abusive censorship on the press when China is becoming more open than Labor and OZ reporters plagiarise others and write half truths in the press (ABC).

mikespol says:

09:32am | 15/05/12

Difference 1. If the people of the US dislike their govt’s policies, they can vote them out.
Difference 2. If someone were arrested in the US for posting comments about a train wreck, the courts would throw the matter out and the arresting officers would face charges, criminal and civil.
Difference 3. The US deals with matters of social discord through open discussion, often using teh internet to do so. The Chinese crack down and remove dissent.

“Communism” is only working in China because people are making money. The irony being the money being made is forming alternate centres of power. This leads to more crack downs. Eventually this contradiction will resolve itself. Then China many internal divides (rich/poor, urban/rural, Han/non-Han) will see a political fracture. This is what the Communist Party most fears, and cannot change as it is the problem.

ZSRenn says:

09:08am | 14/05/12

Don’t worry Sam Nothing James has said here has not been said in the local media and I doubt he would attract much attention for this article. For mine it is a good piece that points out the problems we deal with living here.

In the latest CCCP meeting it was openly discussed and reported regarding the train incident and the CCCP has decided that this method of suppressing information is not a good look for China and it needs to be more open in it’s reporting.

The biggest fear China has is rumours or I guess you could say Chinese Whispers in its social web pages. These rumours were directly responsible for the riots in Xinjiang when it was reported a Xinjiang girl was raped by men in Guangdong. A rush on salt when it was reported and spread that iodine would protect you from the radiation from fallout from the Japanese reactors.

Get involved in these activities at your own peril!

To resolve the problem many English based websites have formed in China so that we can put up our party pics and discuss things foreign etc. They are all strictly monitored so that nothing anti China is posted.

The big problem with them is it is hard to get your family and friends back home to understand the words"Facebook is banned in China please contact me at this website” It usually comes with a response to Facebook or worse an internal mail in Facebook.

James says:

09:29am | 14/05/12

All must kneel before the mighty.

Great stuff Sam, really great stuff there mate.

Sam says:

03:00pm | 14/05/12

@James, if you don’t want to kneel to China, then support Julia Gillard’s Carbon Tax.

Rocksteady says:

08:08am | 14/05/12

The fact that you have to enter your passport number to comment on a website doesn’t seem like a good thing.

Matchofbris says:

08:35am | 14/05/12

And you want the Chinese Government to have your Australian passport number, why?

ZSRenn says:

09:15am | 14/05/12

@ Rocksteady. Why not? It stops people creating multiple profiles and therefore acting like trolls with multiple user names pushing advertising or spamming your in box.

When you arrive in China you have to register with the police anyway. They already have your details so if you need to use it to access Weibo or QQ so be it. The locals have to use their ID number.

1000’s of people have died in China because of misuse of misinformation in forums so if it is necessary to obey Chinese law to take part. I have no problem with that.

Five years now I have been active on the Web in China and still no knock on the door.

RyaN says:

10:38am | 14/05/12

@ZSRenn: How do they verify that its a valid passport number?

ZSRenn says:

02:42pm | 14/05/12

@ Ryan they probably can’t but as with everything in China as long as the paper work is good it’s all ok!

AndrewK says:

09:12am | 14/05/12

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that he’s not going to be able to access that link from China without breaking the law.

How’s that for catch 22?

ZSRenn says:

09:41am | 14/05/12

@ AndrewK you are correct he can’t but since when is wikipedia been held up as a bastion of truth. All bloggers know that to use it as a reference even for things Australian is lazy and inaccurate blogging. It usually is nothing more than an opinion piece by someone with an axe to grind. 

If people were constantly posting bullshit about Australia like is spread about China. I think I would be pissed off as well.

These lies and half truths by people who have often never been to China or have only been on a bus ride from Shanghai to Beijing, speak or cannot read Chinese, cause deaths in China and mistrust of all things Chinese.

I don’t like lies being told about me and I am sure China has the right to stop anti government propaganda from being spread.

marley says:

10:10am | 14/05/12

@ZRSZenn ” I am sure China has the right to stop anti government propaganda from being spread. ” 

Well, you see, there’s the difference, in a nutshell, between a free society like Australia and a controlled society like China. In one, criticism of the government is regarded as propaganda worthy of restraint;  in the other it’s regarded as fair comment, worthy of counterargument.  Everything you’ve said reeks of a paternalistic, big brother knows what’s best for you, attitude towards the populace.  I expect, one of these days, the Chinese people are going to get tired of being treated as children.

ZSRenn says:

02:40pm | 14/05/12

@ marley another arm chair expert that has never been to China except maybe to pat the pandas.

The trouble most foreigners have, especially Australians, is the unrestrained freedoms you have here.
Gone are the handcuffs of the nanny state,
Gone are the storm troopers rolling around in V8 cars fully armed.
Gone are people telling you what you can and can’t do at every turn.

You’ll never get it until you live here. You still think Mao is in charge and everybody is riding push bikes past pictures of him.

Treated like children? pffft! For the first time in a long time I feel I am being treated like an adult.

marley says:

07:51pm | 14/05/12

@ZSRenn - never claimed to be an expert, armchair or otherwise, on China.  I get my sense of what’s going on there from people like you, who don’t even seem to realise what you’re arguing for.

A person building an illegal structure should expect to be arrested?  Well, no, not in Australia.  Here, we regard that as a civil, not a criminal, offence, and generally, we don’t get arrested for those sorts of transgressions.  My neighbour, who did in fact build an illegal construction, was given notice by the council, delayed bringing it down, and was told they’d it for him and charge him costs.  No threat of jailing.

Much like financial transgressions here rate big fines and disqualification from being a company director - not execution.

And if we’re talking nanny states, frankly, I’d rather have one that enforces limits on the speed I can drive than one that enforces limits on the number of kids I can have.  Now that is a true nanny state.

ZSRenn says:

09:26am | 14/05/12

Now this is the sort of uneducated dumb ass comment that would see The Punch go down in China.

The only information you are basing your assumptions of wrong doing are by western media who after living here has the respectability in it’s reporting about China of zero.

This government is dealing openly and honestly with it’s people. It has made many social changes including the first old age pension in it’s 5000 year old history.

Australian Business people need to turn on a TV or learn to understand the words ” Crackdown in corruption!”  Fuck even high level CCP officials are being arrested at least weekly on corruption charges. Any dumb ass who comes over here offering bribes to get a better deal deserves what he gets.

China has 53 different ethnic groups which until 60 years ago were tearing themselves apart. Maintaining order is not as simple in China as it is in Australia. It’s a whole different ball game and with our laws it would tear itself apart.

Scotchfinger says:

09:46am | 14/05/12

I’m sure the Chinese are a bit more sophisticated than that, plus they probably have a sense of humour - unlike yourself perhaps? Ironic that you are posting on an article that is openly critical of censorship in China, but you object to a bit of lighthearted banter on the grounds that it ‘would see the Punch go down in China.’ For all your professed knowledge of the country you seem to underestimate their intelligence.

Fiddler says:

10:07am | 14/05/12

ZSRenn, I am by no means a Cina-apologist, but country as broad as China with the population base etc needs to be run strictly. Could you imagine what would happen if it were run by our bueracracy

ZSRenn says:

10:24am | 14/05/12

@ Scotchfinger, The Chinese do have a sense of humour however English language sarcasm is not well understood, especially in print. Rereading your comment I can now see you may have been using sarcasm but even English speakers have a problem with it in print.

Combine that with the fact that people are dying because of the problems China faces within it’s Internet. I can see nothing funny about death and I am sure the Chinese feel the same way.

Your comment would be seen as everything that is wrong with Western media and it’s projected want, to China, that it wishes to destabilize its government.

SydneyGirl says:

11:23am | 14/05/12

BTW ZSRenn India is way more complicated than China and has an enormous number of problems but its been a democratic nation for 60 odd years and there is no Internet censorship-and recent attempts to do so have been criticised. And its not exactly crumbling because the Internet is not censored. And much as I detest simple minded arguments on Asia here, I also detest simple minded arguments that Westerners have it all wrong on the paradise that is China.

This China is way too big is a lazy argument. So is the US. In fact most of your China arguments are trite and lazy and for someone who lives in China you leave us ignorant folk as ignorant as we were before you commented.

AdamC says:

12:02pm | 14/05/12

I tend to feel both horror and admiration towards the PRC’s leadership, in about equal measure. The scale of their success is matched only by the depth of their cynical authoritarianism.

In the medium term, I think the best we can hope for is that China moves towards a Singapore model. That is, it becomes a country with a liberalised economy and a semi-liberalised (if not really democratic) for of government. China is doing too well to change its course towards freedom and democracy at the moment.

SydneyGirl, the problem for India is that its institutions have not been able to deliver the sort of economic development seen in China. In fact, despite its recent prosperity, India is still home to hundreds of milliosn of people so impoverished that their children’s growth is stunted from hunger. It is unlikely that the grandees of China’s Communist elite will see democratic India as something to emulate!

SydneyGirl says:

12:39pm | 14/05/12

AdamC India’s institutions will never be like the Chinese. Also India has always been prosperous, its the distribution of wealth that is the issue and has always been the issue. Plus even the wealth and equality indexes of states differ. Also note that China is a desperately unequal society run on patronage and favours much like India inspite of so many years of Communism in its many variants. Anyone reading the Bo Xilai case doesn’t have to be Chinese to understand how systems operate there-and please its not a case of “cracking down on corruption” as much as an inside look at how privilege functions.

The chaos of India would not be tolerated by China’s grandees - on the other hand its the chaos and the pluralistic nature of India that keeps its going inspite of its very many ills and in spite of being written off time and again. India is unlikely to go down the China route either. Anyway my point was “China will crumble if its adopt Western ideas and Internet freedom” (apart from the fact that its Communism is also an imported idea) is stupid.

prosperity says:

01:08pm | 14/05/12

SydneyGirl:  No Internet censorship in India?  A democratic nation for sixty years?  If you say so. I don’t know enough about either India or China to make an accurate and detailed comparison.

Both have large populations that pose significant social and economic problems. Both have ethnic and regional divides to manage. However, both have made significant progress over the last sixty years, but both have Internet censorship and laws to control the populace at large, which might not sit comfortably with Western democracies.

People would do well to consider two things:
(1) Citizens of Western democracies (for example, the USA, UK and Australia) are subject to the most draconian laws relating to their rights and freedoms imaginable.  Read Australia’s terrorist laws.

(2)  There is no logical reason to suppose that the “democratic” form of government now represented by Western democracies is the ideal for every other country. To observe a corrupt government that has bankrupted the country;  lacking any vision for even the next ten years; pleading lack of funds for just about every enterprise except military armaments; overseeing a nation in the grip of alcohol, drugs and crime;  and supported by a minority of the people, look no further than our own. Or the USA. Or the UK.

SydneyGirl says:

01:31pm | 14/05/12

Actually prosperity India became independent in 1947. It has had elections since then. It has an Election Commission which does a pretty good job of overseeing this. Its had minority governments and survived. It still has English law as a part of its legal system. Most issues are routinely discussed in the press etc.-and India has a regional press too btw.  So yeah if you want to be nitpicky you can but for the large part India is democratic.

Sure there is a degree of “censorship” everywhere, to the paranoid even election cards may count as the government holding information on its citizens. Its not an argument for the kind of muzzling that happens in China.

I am honestly bored of the argument that democracy is some kind of Western imposition.  So is the basic framework of Soviet Communism for that matter, the framework of which China seems unable to shake off.  Maybe try and understand that ideas are universal and that people in developing countries may actually be animated by the idea of democracy because you know they have a brain and can compare their own governments with Western democracies? A few months back I was in Cambodia and my taxi driver had a more nuanced view than West equals Bad.

Scotchfinger says:

01:49pm | 14/05/12

SydneyGirl = great, attractive, wonderful, smart
Dissenting Views = stupid, foul in body, mind and deed, stupid

marley says:

02:33pm | 14/05/12

SydneyGirl has a point - India is as large as China and as diverse (in fact, more so).  It has been a democratic country (except for the period 1975-77) for over 60 years without collapsing or falling into anarchy.  It has corruption issues and there is an enormous divide between the poor and the wealthy, but the middle class is burgeoning.  It has reduced the fertility rate by more than half without resorting to draconian measures.  And while it has a very long way to go, it is still climbing in the literacy and longevity stakes.  All without the kind of forced guidance from above that China regards as be necessary. 

Personally, I think the argument that democracy is unsuited to large, highly diverse populations is paternalistic nonsense.  If India, the US and Brazil can manage it, why cannot China? 

That is not to say that China hasn’t made tremendous progress in the last 20 years or so, but to claim that the progress could never occur in a open society is, I think, highly questionable reasoning.

craig2 says:

11:10am | 14/05/12

The class clown, Craig Thompson.

ZSRenn says:

10:00am | 14/05/12

Well said prosperity!

Lara says:

03:40pm | 14/05/12

Where is the ‘bedlam and crime’ that you speak of, prosperity?
Sounds like old-style communist-style propaganda to me!

What’s with all the apologists for China?
Plenty of my local Chinese migrant friends have plenty to say about the intrusion of government in freedoms and lifestyle in China…and not much of it is complimentary.

davo says:

06:13am | 15/05/12

“Where is the ‘bedlam and crime’ that you speak of, prosperity?”
The fedral parliment.

D for Dumb says:

09:58am | 14/05/12

You should get a clue and then come back and apologise for your ignorance.

Super Inky says:

11:10am | 14/05/12

Haha, true that.

We’re much safer thesedays with the multiple networ-

Oh, you mean all the lines are owned by Telstra? But I’m serviced by Optus! Oh, they rent the lines from Telstra?

Well in that case I better go with wireless, at least my telco owns their wireless towers!

Oh, you mean the NBN, while containing it’s own wireless component, is not forcing other providers to shut down their own wireless operations?

Scotchfinger says:

12:21pm | 14/05/12

if ZSRenn’s picture of a tolerant, pro-free speech China is so apposite, why have Google had such issues in the country? Why do they lock up artists and poets (hardly dangerous individuals). It seems to me the Chinese Communist Party are pragmatic and will indulge practices that give them good publicity, but remember they directly support both Iran and North Korea, turn a blind eye to the trafficking of body parts and are a belligerent trading partner. Would you like to be a factory worker in China Mr Renn? Or be falsely accused of murder by a party official?

All this ‘goodwill’ stuff is just window dressing.

ZSRenn says:

02:55pm | 14/05/12

@ Scotchfinger again you are accepting what is said by western media as truth of what actually occurs.

Poets and artists indeed. One so called artist built an unauthorised construction and then refusing to tear it down was arrested. Correct me if I am wrong but this would happen in Australia as well. He then screamed persecution and everybody in the west jumped on his bandwagon.

A recent Nobel peace prize winner caused a riot that under Australian law would have him earmarked as a terrorist. It caused 100’s of deaths but the west and even the Nobel comity treat him like a hero.

What about the last classic example. A blind guy says he was kept under house arrest by 100 troops but was able to escape the house arrest. Not a bad effort for a sighted person. I would think. He just wants to get to the US under his grass is always greener thinking and knows this is the best way to go about it. Make noise and milk western ignorance.

SydneyGirl says:

03:14pm | 14/05/12

Oy Scotchfinger, thank you for the endorsement.

I think ZSRenn is a special Chinese experiment, they have taken him in, reporgrammed him and sent him out.

Just kidding but lad you will have to do better than pooh poohing everything as an ignorant laowai viewpoint. Are you kdding us by saying that there is no dissenting discussion on Ai Weiwei and co in China, that they are all thought of as stupids to be kept in line? Or that the Chinese press does not cover the shortcomings of our own society?

Li Xia says:

04:56pm | 14/05/12

I live in rural / regional China and one of my biggest frustrations is that the Chinese government spends so much time and money fussing about the big picture city stuff and ignores the crucial basic stuff. The internet censorship is incessant and nit picky to the point of ridiculousness most of the time, and is a pain in the bum but doesn’t really affect my life or the lives of most Chinese. But the Government doesn’t do basic things like implement their own road rules or keep their hospitals clean. @misty3 and @ZSRenn, maybe you live in fabulous well managed modern Chinese cities. However most of the population lives in rural areas or regional cities and I think a lot would benefit from some more basic governing, like ensuring people drive on the right side of the road, asking doctors not to spit or smoke in operating theatres and stopping people from pooing on the street.

Scotchfinger says:

07:47pm | 14/05/12

...thanks Li Xia. ZSRenn and Misty have gone back to their local officials to consult on the best riposte to your claims. Plus they are finding out if they can learn your identity (ha ha just joking). SydneyGirl and myself will go to bed tonight (not together, we are both married) wondering if we’ll hear the dreaded, muted doornock at 3am. After all, the Australian government seems to be into appeasement; don’t bite the hand that feeds. Right, Gillard?

the cynic says:

03:49pm | 22/08/12

I have lived in Hong Kong for over 24 years and travel in China regularly have friends and family there. To understand the country is paramount, you flow with it don’t fight it and you will have no problems.  China must have control over the billion plus culturally diverse population or the place would unravel. Look at the USA , 300 odd million and the problems they have. Says volumes as to what happens when people are free to do as they please. Australia is going down the same route along with many other democratic countries. The average Chinese couldn’t give a rats that they don’t have uncensored internet. They are too busy making money and surviving and just want to be left alone and raise a good son , have a full bowl of rice every day a roof over their head and money for their later life.  In my long stays over the border I have never had one issue with the authorities. When in Rome springs to mind arrogance and ignorance will get you no where in China.