About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

Several days ago, ESWN posted a translation of a Tianya post titled “What is the reason China’s younger generation is losing confidence in the Western media?”

More than a decade ago, a Chinese diplomat gave a speech in which he narrated a story. At a certain UN meeting, the British representative condemned China for not being sufficiently democratic as usual. The Chinese representative retorted, “Your country has been promoting democracy in Africa for more than a century, but how is it doing now?” The British representative shut up …

This is one example of the western nations promoting their values. They have many methods, including hard and soft methods. The hard methods involve the United States and Great Britain pushing democracy in the Middle East, but all they got was a quagmire. The soft methods involve the western media using their international speech rights to say awful things about countries which do not have western-style democracy. China appears to be the constant target of the western media. This is understandable, because Chinese-style democracy is different from the western style and China has blazed its own trail. The easiest to say that your stuff is good by sayingthat the stuff from the other side is bad. The western media are very good at that and they can pull these types of reports out of thin air. If you want to go back further in time, there was the front page story in TIME magazine in 1997. If you want something closer in time, there are all those stories about the Olympic torch relays earlier this year.

If there are no western tourists coming to China and no Chinese studying overseas, the western media could say whatever they want and they own the international speech rights. If you cannot see for yourself, you have to trust them. But times are different, as more and more western visitors come to China and more and more Chinese tourists travel overseas.

According to the statistics, only 280,000 persons traveled from China to overseas between 1949 and 1978. That would be fewer than 10,000 persons per annum. In 2007 alone, 40 million Chinese citizens traveled overseas, while 56 million foreigners came to China.

The western tourists are perplexed because China is completely unlike what their own media are reporting. The overseas Chinese students are perplexed because very few western media reports have anything good to say about China. Why?

The western media which own the international speech rights think that this is the only way to show off the superiority of western values. But they are mistaken. Those who have seen the real China realized that they had been deceived by the western media. Meanwhile, the hypocrisy of the western media are made known to the Chinese people going abroad and they become ever more patriotic. Even if the majority of western media were to switch positions today, they are merely reflecting the true state of affairs because the western tourists have seen too much and the television broadcasts are live. However, the western media will inevitably revert to true form.

Some western media may be perplexed by the fact that they used to be able to report whatever they want without meeting any protests from China. How is it that any negative comment that they now make will draw a lot of protests?

This is because the customarily arrogant western media may not have realized that they had lost China! They are losing the admiration and trust of the Chinese youth. Over the past three decades, the Chinese government has led the country to an astonishing economic growth, and many citizens have benefited from it. The Chinese who travel overseas during this period are the rapidly rising middle class and the intelligentsia. When they see the good things in China being badmouthed in the western media, what else is this but hypocrisy?

Ultimately, the Chinese people want to achieve prosperity and national power through democratization. But the western media seem to only want democracy for the sake of democracy and they don’t care what happens to China afterwards.

The Chinese form of democracy guarantees first and foremost the right to survive and develop. But the western media wants to promote its own form of democracy according to its own ideas. They don’t care what happens to a country afterwards. For example, the United States went into Iraq to promote democracy. When things don’t work out, they bail out. What does democracy in Iraq matter to the United States? In the past, Great Britain and France have promoted democracy in Africa, until the continent became the Third World within the Third World? What does democracy in Africa matter to Great Britain and France?

The promotion of these double standards has only exposed their hypocrisy in front of the Chinese and foreign people. This is something that the western media did not imagine. If they want to keep up with the times, they should correct their mistakes. Since they are the media, truth should come first. In reply to a question a few days ago about the suspension of a Chinese journalist in Germany, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said that the media ought to observe the basic rules — to report in an objective and fair manner. This is easier said than done for the western media.

Following that original post were dozens of comments in agreement:

作者：声声夺人 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:45:28

楼主说的很对
其实根源在他们自己
他们的新闻都是假的
自然失去我们中国人的信任！

What the original poster said is so true.
Actually, the root of the problem is themselves.
Their news is all fake [inaccurate],
naturally losing the confidence of the Chinese people.

作者：加密之心 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:46:51

我从来不相信西方媒体
所以自然没有西方媒体失去我这一说
那些垃圾新闻机构
都是反-=华势=-力的帮凶！

I never trust Western media
so I can say the Western media did not lose my trust.
Those garbage news agencies
are all accomplices of anti-China forces!

作者：人间美丽 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:48:42

我一般只看国内的新闻
因为外国人不了解
难免戴上有色眼镜
支持楼主！

I usually only watch domestic news
because foreigners do not understand
and inevitably wear colored glasses.
I support the OP!

Now, I know what you’re thinking…and it’s pretty much what I’m thinking.

But let’s take a look at what some other Chinese posters on Tianya were thinking:

作者：公子为 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:59:10

奇怪！
西方媒體怎會失去中國年輕一代的信任呢？
你能看到西方媒體嗎？
反正我是看不到。

Weird!
How can the Western news media lose the trust of China’s younger generation?
Can you see the Western news media?
I know I can’t.

作者：不知道风向 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:08:16

咱看过西方媒体吗？连凤凰台都看不全，总是莫名其妙出广告。

Have we watched Western news media before? We can’t even watch Phoenix TV in its entirety, always strangely cutting to commercials.

作者：做玻璃砸弹弓 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:15:36

楼主说的很对
其实根源在他们自己
他们的新闻都是假的
自然失去我们中国人的信任！
————————————————
是呀，哪有我们新闻联播真实啊，
我们新闻联播第一句都是：今天是某年某月某日农历某月某日，从不出错，太真实了。

What the original poster said is so true.
Actually, the root of the problem is themselves.
Their news is all fake [inaccurate],
naturally losing the confidence of the Chinese people.
————————————————
Yeah, no where as true [accurate] as our news networks,
Our news networks always begin with the sentence: Today is what year, what month, what day and what month, what day of the Lunar New Year. Never wrong, exceedingly [accurate].

作者：干死楼主全家 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:19:38

不好意思，作为中国年轻一代，还不知道信任为何物。
也不知道什么是媒体，只知道CCTV。。

Sorry, but as part of China’s younger generation, I still do know what trust/confidence is.
I also do not know what is news media, I only know CCTV…

作者：sccdzm1188cn2 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:20:56

声声夺人
注册日期： 2008-9-7 14:27:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 14:29:00
加密之心
注册日期： 2008-9-7 14:40:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 14:43:00
人间美丽
注册日期： 2008-9-7 14:44:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 14:46:00
不是诺夫
注册日期： 2008-9-7 14:46:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 14:48:00
半条野狗
注册日期： 2008-9-7 14:49:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 14:51:00
东山植树
注册日期： 2008-9-7 14:54:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 14:56:00
有人有意
注册日期： 2008-9-7 14:57:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 14:58:00
撒旦协力
注册日期： 2008-9-7 14:59:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 15:01:00
故事之王
注册日期： 2008-9-7 15:02:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 15:04:00
萧衡遍野
注册日期： 2008-9-7 15:04:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 15:05:00
==========================
快来看庞大的四字4+1毛队伍啊，靠，发了３次都发不出

[List of users, their registration dates/times, and their last activity on the website. It shows that many of the "replies" supporting the OP came from accounts that were recently registered in rapid succession]
==========================
Quick, come look at the enormous amount of Wu Mao Dang [50 Cent Party], shit, it took me 3 tries to post!

作者：几许悠 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:24:25

楼主能看到西方媒体吗?我咋看不到了.

The OP can see western news media? I can’t see anything.

作者：stackhouse1201 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:25:04

哇靠，恶心透顶的five 毛

Holy shit, the Wu Mao Dang [50 Cent Party] is too disgusting.

To be sure, many Chinese are still quite wary about the Western media, especially following the coverage of the T!betan riots earlier this year. Most educated people around the world definitely acknowledge that biases do exist in Western media, for many reasons and of which some of which are understandable while others are not. Moreover, we also know that bad news sells in the West and hearing the Chinese demand that Western media do more “balanced” reporting by including more positives about China just isn’t going to happen.

Westerners often scoff at the Chinese for having the audacity to criticize Western media. Just look at how blatantly propagandist and biased the Chinese media can be. But, to their credit, many Chinese are fully aware that their own domestic media is far from objective even as they chastise Western media. To them, it isn’t about Chinese media being better or Western media being better, it is simply about pointing out the fact that when one side is wrong, they’re wrong.

For those of us observing the often heated dialogue between the critics and defenders of China, we sometimes forget that the Chinese are not a homogeneous band of stark raving protesters, internet vigilantes, and comment trolls. True, the Chinese often don’t help themselves by reverting to defensiveness whenever a foreigner is part of any discussion on China’s problems, but we do have to admit that them doing so isn’t wholly incomprehensible.

There is ample diversity of opinion and thought amongst the Chinese even if that expression is sometimes controlled and threatened by the central government. Unfortunately, most Western observers are incapable of reading the Chinese required to venture onto the major Chinese-language internet forums like Tianya. If they could, they would certainly see much that would upset them, even disturb them, but they would also hopefully see much to reassure and encourage them from comments like those above, made by Chinese who are not only rational and reasonable but also blessed with well-tuned propaganda bullshit meters and incisive wit.

The Chinese are not idiots. If nothing else, they’re survivors. Unlike many of us who have somewhere to escape to, they often have little choice but to deal with the world they live in, state-sponsored mouthpieces and all.

By the way, Roland Soong @ ESWN is one of my favorite blogs covering China, always providing tons of translated material (along with Jack Kennedy @ GVO and Fauna @ chinaSMACK). I simply wish Roland would set up an RSS feed for his Brief Comments Section, as he posts a ton of good stuff there that I often miss. His RSS feed only seems to contain his less frequently updated material from his Blog Posts section, and I don’t always get a chance to visit his website. If anyone knows something I don’t about that, please let me know.

I noticed an interesting comment posted by mtlyorel in Elliott’s recent post about David Brooks:

Neither Brooks or other commentators let alone career China-bashers i.e. Fallows - understand fully the concept of collectivism in China. For starters, collectivism needs semantic qualification. Collectivism is really a concept that exists in all cultures, and certainly one can say the same thing about Japan and Korea. Collectivism in the Asian context in this instance really means a unified desire to reach one goal. This ’spirit’ has little to do with ethnic or cultural homogeneity which is what the commentators and Brooks himself fail to understand.

Simply, it is a desire to achieve successfully a common goal. The Chinese people are most similar in character to Americans. (If you don’t believe me, google for academic references on this topic.) There is no one ‘Chinese’ as there is no one ‘American’ or ‘French’. The misconception is that China is one monolithic and homogeneous entity. It isn’t. It is like a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities that are taught - just like all Americans - to have one single Chinese identity. In this case of course, through the directive and propaganda of the CCP.

The emphases are mine, and to me, the statements I emphasized were interesting enough to compel me to separate my response into its own post:

Might I suggest that the “collectivism” in China is not so much about a “a unified desire to reach one goal” but rather a “shared ideology of lost glory and historical victimization?”

Along the lines of comparing the Chinese to Americans, I do believe there certainly exist interesting parallels, but at the same time I feel there might be a qualitative disconnect between the two here. We can argue that the unifying American “identity” surrounds that ever-cliched “American Dream.” However, what is the “story” that the unifying Chinese “identity” is built upon? If the Americans have their “American Dream,” what do the Chinese have? Could we suggest it might be “Chinese Victim-hood?”

Furthermore, can we argue that Americans are more driven by a shared dream whereas the Chinese are more driven by a shared fear of their past, a past consistently characterized as the world’s oldest and once-mightiest civilization squandered away and raped by outsiders? Is there a qualitative difference between people yearning for what they never had and people struggling to regain what they perceive as something they lost?

Without straying too far from the above propositions, how does “collectivism” and “individualism” fit into this? If we accept the American Dream as the basis for the unifying identity of Americans, would we have to examine if this identity is merely the collective coincidence of individual dreams and aspirations set in a land perceived to offer the opportunities for their realization? Would we, then, need to ask ourselves if the unifying “Chinese Victim-hood” is something that all Chinese individually and coincidentally ascribe to or if it was instilled in them, systematically, by the very “directive and propaganda of the CCP” that mtlyorel presumes?

Nothing hard and fast here, just questions to prompt discussion. What are your thoughts?

As we all (should) know, the 2008 Beijing Olympics have arrived and are well underway. In fact, China is running away with the total medal count so far, pocketing gold medals like they were free ketchup packets at the local McDonald’s…that is, assuming the cheap-ass McDonalds’ here in China actually parted with their ketchup packets, what with their stingy two-packets-only-come-back-for-more policy.

Now, I’m writing this post four days after the Opening Ceremony, a spectacular-spectacular that, uh, I must agree was excellent. Part of me thinks this is a good time to write a post, with all the warm, fuzzy feelings the event instilled in me having subsided, and safely removed from the distraction of emotions. The other part of me doesn’t want to discard those emotions, however temporary they may have been the night I watched that annoyingly jumpy satellite feed of the ceremony.

I want to ask an emphatic question, one that can hopefully pierce through all our biased, jaded, or demoralized hearts and minds: “As you watched the Opening Ceremony, as thousands of Chinese put on their grand show, as the symbolic imagery played out before your eyes, as the athletes marched out with flags waving, and as millions of people watched around the world…

…how did you feel?”

No, I’m not asking if you were impressed by the show, or even if you were disgusted by what you consider to be excesses. Nor am I asking what you think about China’s politics, economics, or the state of its society. I’m not asking whether you think China deserved the honor of hosting the Games. Nor am I asking if you think the Olympics is politicized commercialism. I’m asking about you on a personal level, about how you feel about the world you live in and even your place in it.

Have the Opening Ceremony and these Olympic Games affected you, opened your eyes, or given you–dare I say it–hope?

We know that the Olympics has, over time, come to support many causes and movements. Yet, wasn’t the original mission of the modern Olympic Games to bring the world together, to bring us together, to celebrate humanity, our humanity? Wasn’t it about friendly competition, and reminding everyone that we all have similar aspirations that we work towards, that we all delight in our successes and despair at out failures, and that there’s always another chance next time?

The oft-quoted Olympic Creed reads:

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

There’s something there that should resonate with each and every one of us, and, as the athletes of the world took to the field and viewers around the world tuned in, we should have been reminded that each and every one of us has no choice but to take part in life, struggling and fighting to conquer and triumph over life’s never ending challenges, limitations, and defeats. We should have been able to look past our petty, and even not-so-petty, differences and marvel at our similarities.

For all the stark differences in opinion, values, and ideology, were we able to appreciate the humanity that is shared by us all? Were we able to understand, accept, even appreciate all of the admirable and despicable things that each and every one of us have done and are capable of doing? Because, quite frankly, while we’re all imperfect bastards with skeletons in our closets and shit that stinks, we’re also real living, breathing, feeling people with genuine fears, hopes, and dreams.

Yes, we all know that reality is never quite so simple. We know that even as the Olympics run their course, pain and suffering continue throughout the world, never stopping for the idealistic whims of man.

We know that.

But, for one, single–possibly inconsequential–moment, did you feel anything close to “Hey, we’re going to be okay”?

With all the tolerated genocide, rioting minorities, silenced grievances, information censorship, vetoed sanctions, environmental pollution, civilian surveillance, murdered fathers, competitive cheating, and their persistent constancy reminding us of the aggravating imperfection and seemingly unresolvable differences in the world… for one second were you able to forget? Were you able to look upon the extravagant Opening Ceremony and not think of it as an extravagance, to see past the ostentation and discover a genuine effort to earn your respect and a place by your side? Were you able to let go of your prejudices and agendas to personally see and embrace the Chinese as real people, not just a far-removed concept or, at worst, a threat?

No, you don’t have to agree with everything that happens in China or what the Chinese do, nor ought you accept it and stop fighting against what you believe to be fundamentally wrong. No, not everything behind these Olympic Games are pure and good, free of taint, or wholly in pursuit of universal ideals. But this isn’t about that or them. This is about you. When was the last time you felt, sincerely, that the world isn’t about “us” or “them” prevailing, and that there is, indeed, enough humanity within us all to coexist peacefully with a basic degree of mutual respect?

If you were able to feel that way, then that’s a start… and then maybe–just maybe–we have a chance after all.

I just had my 15 seconds of fame pseudo-fame on the BBC World Service radio program “World, Have Your Say.” The debate topic was “Are we turning a blind eye to China?”

Today we’re asking if, in the run up to the Olympics, we’re all turning a blind eye to China ? (Pssst, human rights anyone ?) With just a few days to go until the Opening ceremony are we all just about to be dazzled by the spectacle, the sheer size, the numbers and of course the excitement of sporting excellence - day, after day, after day - for two weeks. Will the Games be so engaging, so absorbing that we forget the other story of China ?

Despite the lively commentary and discussions on the usual emotional baggage surrounding human-rights-violatin’ China being the host for the Olympic Games, I only got a chance to say:

1. Most people have already decided how they’re going to view China;
2. It is too late to stop or change the Olympics Games;
3. People should definitely continue to engage the Chinese and express their opinions, support, or criticisms;
4. But they need manage their expectations and not insist upon hoping for things to happen when they want it and how they want it.

Four is an unlucky number.

Now, I should probably review the other comments or arguments presented by the other speakers on the debate…but just as I wasn’t inclined to interrupt them mid-speech, I’m not really inclined at this moment to rehash what continually gets hashed and rehashed.

And rehashed.

Let’s just say I was glad that most of them were far more balanced and reasonable than I expected…at least more so than the categorical idiocy found in many of the comments on the WHYS blog.

Thanks, BBC, for having me on briefly. You guys rock. Someone tell Jeremy Clarkson he has all my love.

To say that the run-up to the Oympics (whee, 9 days left, rah rah) has been a stomach-churning, mind-numbing roller-coaster ride of twists and turns and ups and downs would be an unforgivable understatement, on par with asserting that the Chinese outfits for the 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony is only…slightly clashing.

The latest nauseating corkscrew of an embarrassment to the Chinese-run Olympic Games has been the popular outrage amongst Chinese citizens that buffet meals served to foreign reporters and media will only cost one measly USD (~6.8 RMB). To add insult to injury for the Chinese, not only is it all-you-can eat (because Westerners love to eat, just look at those gargantuan Americans), it’s also a smorgasbord of culinary delight rumored to be prepared by China’s top chefs! Great, so that’s three whammies in a row. Cheap, plentiful, and prepared by the finest…oh, and the fourth, reserved only for foreign devils.

Yeah, I’d be kinda upset too.

One of the mass e-mail forwards references a recent story of a mother who stole meat for her child, asking emphatically:

CCP，请问你们用了人民的钱去办奥运，为什么不让那个偷肉的母亲带着小孩去吃奥运的一美圆（7人民币）的自助餐呢？ 才一美元啊，所有中国老百姓都能享受的起吧！但是为什么只让外国人享受，却不让 中国人民享受呢？

“CCP, you used the Chinese people’s money to put on the Olympics, why not let the meat-stealing mother bring her child to eat the Olympic 1 USD buffet? Just 1USD, all the Chinese commoners can enjoy! But why only let foreigners enjoy and not let the Chinese people enjoy?”

To be sure, 1 USD buffet meals is a downright steal for the vast majority of foreigners…and an outright affront to the vast majority of Chinese who spend 1 USD each day and get far less.

But, our dear Chinese can take solace in knowing that the Chinese government has not completely betrayed them once they take a gander of how ridiculously expensive internet access will be for those same Olympic reporters and media personnel. US$1,131 for one month of broadband DSL service…that, contrary to what everyone originally thought China promised, will still be censored. Wow, I only pay 130 RMB (19 USD) a month…for censored internet…suckers.

One, perhaps unsurprising, Chinese comment in response to Western complaints about this reads:

你们他妈的脑子进水了吧,都想来白吃白喝白住,还他妈白用,去死吧

Has water entered your mother*ucking brains? You all want to come eat without paying, drink without paying, stay without paying, and use the internet without paying? Go kill yourselves.

Well, that certainly helps put the Chinese resentment in perspective. This one provides a humorous counter-balance.

So maybe the government got it backwards. That whole “food before freedom” argument works with the poor Chinese masses…but not so much for the now well-fed Western Olympic journalists

Kaiser Kuo just broadcast over Twitter that an Uighur separatist group (Turkestan Islamic Party, which may or may not be the same as East Turkestan Islamic Movement or ETIM) has taken credit for the deadly bombing of Shanghai bus route #842 I posted earlier this past May. From Yahoo News:

In a video statement, Commander Seyfullah of the Turkestan Islamic Party claimed credit for several attacks, including the May 5 Shanghai bus bombing which killed three; another Shanghai attack; an attack on police in Wenzhou on July 17 using an explosive-laden tractor; a bombing of a Guangzhou plastic factory on July 17; and bombings of three buses in Yunnan province on July 21.

Three people were killed as a result of the explosion on the crowded bus in Shanghai on May 5, police and witnesses said.

The incident occurred during the morning traffic rush hour in northwest Shanghai and also left 12 people injured.

At the time, authorities attributed the blast to flammable materials carried by a passenger.

But Seyfullah said the blast was the work of his group and warned of more explosions to come.

…read the rest.

I quickly questioned the “official story” given by Chinese authorities after the incident that the bus merely caught fire. While I fully understand the idea that we don’t want to cause needless panic amongst the citizenry, I (and a lot of Shanghainese) do feel a bit vindicated that the truth has come out…of course, provided the Turkestan Islamic Party isn’t just misappropriating credit.

In light of this, I do feel a bit for the Chinese central government, dealing with “splittists” and “terrorists” on one side while having to fend off the constant criticisms of “the West” on the other. But hey, welcome to the big leagues, China. Please take a seat next to the United States. There’s always a price to pay for greatness, everyone pays it, and “harmonious, peaceful China” is no exception.

I’m curious how this might (or if it will) play out in China’s domestic media. Let me know in the comments if you see any news reports on this.

7/26 UPDATE from Elliott:

via Kaiser Kuo of Digital Watch, here is what is supposed to be the Turkestan Islamic Party’s video (Arabic) claiming responsibility:

7/26 UPDATE from Elliott:

The Guardian.Co.uk (via Reuters) reports the denial of Chinese authorities that the May 5 bus explosion was not the work of this group:

Chinese authorities denied claims by a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party that it was responsible for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and Yunnan province ahead of the Olympic Games, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.
The group released a video threatening the Beijing Olympic Games and claiming responsibility for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and in Yunnan’s Kunming, a terrorism monitoring firm in Washington said on Friday.
But Xinhua reported that a police investigation of the Shanghai blast on May 5 had nothing to do with “terrorist attacks”.
The blast, which killed three people and wounded 12, was caused by inflammables such as oil, Cheng Jiulong, Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau deputy head, was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
“The blast was indeed deliberate but had nothing to do with terrorist attacks,” he said.

7/26 UPDATE from Elliott:

John Kennedy at Global Voices Online also posted on this and highlighted the fact that the Turkestan Islamic Party may not actually be ETIM, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement.  Also, he posts what may be a translation to the video, also posted on the IntelCenter website:

恐怖份子 Turkistan Islamic Party Commander Seyfullah: “Our damullah, Abdul Heq, made his final order to the [person] responsible for the military regarding the issue of severely attacking all central cities in inner China, particularly focusing on eight cities that are going to hold Olympic games. … ask our merciful Allah to allow these brothers and sisters [suicide bombers] to deal a fatal blow in this jihad against Chinese & we ask our merciful Allah to completely stop Olympic Games. … Bomb Chinese government buildings, military barracks, airplanes, airports, railways, hotels, entertainment venues, tourist spots and similar places…You’re even permitted to use biological weapons this time.”
Hopefully, this topic will not become too sensitive such that this post gets blocked.

Kenneth Tan at Shanghaiist also covers the story in more depth than we have here.

Much to the detriment of my productivity, I spend an unwholesome amount of time online verbally sparring with individuals who take extremist political positions on China, whether for or against. Most regular readers of websites and blogs focusing on China-centric topics are familiar with the never-ending commentary that plays out, usually involving arrogant Westerners condemning all that is Chinese on one side, the rabid Chinese nationalists running defense with the best English they can muster on the other, and the nauseating hypocrisy in the middle that seemingly no side can ever get away from.

I sometimes step back and look at this depressing fiasco as a whole, and wonder if we’re not all utter idiots, clutching to the vain hope that our criticisms, insults, explanations, persuasions, or emphatic exhortations will somehow change someone’s mind for what we consider to be the more balanced and the better. It is demoralizing, to say the least, to realize that, yes…we’re all utter idiots.

Take, for instance, the politicization of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. How incredibly aggravating it is to see the Chinese and the Chinese government demand that the rest of the world not politicize their cherished coming-out party, only to see that they themselves have politicized it to the hilt. It may be wholly understandable that they want that control. Yet, it is that precise double-standard coupled with bumbling–or just poorly translated–rhetoric that consistently overshadows the sheer cultural ignorance and insensitivity we see from holier-than-thou activists for whatever movement du jour that has a gripe with China, its government, or all 1.3 billion of its people.

Those on the polarized ends will never see eye-to-eye, nor do they care to. The battle has always been and will always be for those in the middle. I’d like to think I’m in the middle but unlike those on the ends, I think that’s exactly where I and the majority of people should remain. Yes, straddling the fence involves the fence being uncomfortably entrenched up my nether regions but I’ll deal. Why? Because the truth is–according to me, of course–that both sides are right and both sides are wrong. This has been the case and will unfortunately always be the case, and I’d very much prefer to associate myself with the “right” on both sides.

Perhaps,then, the reason I continue to be drawn into these debates is my idealistic–but childish–faith in the marketplace of ideas. I mean, if I know something and I don’t share it, who knows how many countless souls will be swayed into the abyss of ignorance, bias, prejudice, and greater idiocy? Ah, yes, how narcissistic of me but isn’t cherishing dissent in the presence of consent precisely the difference between Western ideals of democracy, freedom, and human rights, and the authoritarian “social harmony” of China?

But in addition to the wonderful ideal of passionate but reasoned discourse leading us all to enlightened decision-making and declared positions is the very practical notion of being practical. Trying to convince your mortal enemy that he or she is an idiot is like China trying to convince the Dalai Lama that he’s the incarnation of evil; it is a waste of time and there could be more productive things to be done like racking up notches or, In China’s case, making sure your truths, lies, and spins are believed by the only people that really matter, your domestic population.

With all of that in mind, I offer you this excerpt of a July 14th article from the New York Times, whom many Chinese largely regard as a biased, Western, anti-China publication simply because it dares to print anything critical of China:

The call he will never forget came for Peter Ueberroth in the middle of the night on May 12, 1984, over a crackling phone line from Beijing. It carried the news he believed would determine the fate of the Olympics, not just the Games he was working to organize in Los Angeles that summer but all the ones beyond.

At the other end of the line was Charles Lee, the man he had sent to persuade the Chinese to send their team to the Olympics for the first time. Ueberroth, the leader of the Los Angeles organizing committee, was asking China to defy a Soviet Union-led boycott that was announced four days earlier. The Soviets said the boycott would keep 100 countries away from the ‘84 Games. If the Soviets succeeded, Ueberroth said flatly, “we were done.”

Salvation came when Lee called and told Ueberroth, “They’re coming.”

As the world prepares for the Beijing Games in August, that moment is all but lost in the history of the Olympics, when the winds shifted and carried the Games away from a political bludgeon in the cold war to the combination of athletic and commercial success they have become since.

Ueberroth, now 70 and the chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, will lead the American team into China with a deep sense of gratitude. He believes China saved the Olympics.

So maybe the United States and George W. Bush, the fantastic man that he is, attending the 2008 Beijing Games isn’t really about kowtowing to China. Maybe its about something else and hopefully something more…human.

I know China has, in many frustrating ways, sabotaged its own Games with their own immature insecurities. I know it is difficult to put up with the politics that inevitable surround the Olympics, especially when it involves a country, government, or citizenship that has difficulty dealing with the negative attention and criticism that always comes. The dialogue and debates should continue, ideally in the spirit of greater mutual understanding and mutual growth, but maybe we should pause for a moment to reflect upon an Olympics separate from all the nonsense. If the British and German soldiers of World War I could put down their guns to play a game of football for Christmas, can’t we put aside our agendas and share a moment of peace for the Olympics?

I mean, I hear they’ve got some breathtaking architecture in Beijing. It’d be a shame to miss it.

China’s Zheng Jie, was finally eliminated from the Wimbledon’s women’s singles tennis yesterday, losing to #6 Serena Williams (USA). This was following a historic run that saw her upsetting top seeded Ana Ivanovic’s (Serbia) in Round 3 and defeating #18 Nicole Vaidisova (Czech Republic) in Tuesday’s Quarter-Finals. Ranked #133 in the world, she entered the prestigious event as a wild card and became the first Chinese player to break into the Semi-Finals.

The Chengdu native’s surprise performance captivated a nation, known more for table tennis, as Chinese around the country tuned into late-night live broadcasts both on TV and on their computers. I watched the repeatedly rain-interrupted game on the computer last night. I probably would’ve gotten this up earlier had I not immediately gone to sleep, disappointed as I was by Zheng Jie losing the tie-breaker to Serena…with an anti-climactic double-fault. Dammit. Bursting with pride, China Daily even has a poll up today asking if Zheng will win a medal at August’s Olympic Games.

In the news:

• Zheng Jie granted Wimbledon Open wildcard
• Zheng Jie beats top-seeded Ana Ivanovic at Wimbledon
• Zheng makes history, to help quake-hit hometown
• Zheng misses tie-breaker and Wimbledon final

Wheee! We’re back! …in rainy, dreary Hong Kong. Let’s get to it.

SESSION 6: Society, Continuity & Change
Moderator/Discussant: Jack Qiu, Assistant Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

“Coal and the Internet in China Digital governance and politics of markets”
by Jesper Shlaeger, Ph.D Candidate, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.

• Coal and internet? How’re they related?
• The coal industry in China was one of the last vestiges of a planned economy. Every year, coal was allocated at a summit.
• Change of coal industry to being market-driven was partially influenced by the development and availability of internet technology.

“The Online Game Industry in China: A Preliminary Observation on the Political Economic Structure.”
by Chung Peichi, Assistant Professor, Communications and New Media Programme, National University of Singapore.

• Online gaming industry in China, South Korea, and Singapore.
• Video Game Spending Growth grew 35.1% in 2002, 19.1% in 2008, estimated 5.3% by 2011.
• Will still be lower than Japan and South Korea in total money spent.
• Research Question: What is the meaning of globalization in the Asian context?
• Research Question: What is the strucutre in the online game industry in China?
• Research Question: The local industry dynamics?
• Rapid increase in local production of online games in China: 61 games in 2002, up to 203 games in 2007, with many of them being ported over from Korea but locally operated.
• In 2002, game developers were usually the US and Korea with China being the Publisher and Distributor.
• By 2007, many games were developed, published, and distributed within China itself. 
• Government agencies: Ministry of Infomration INdustry, Ministry of Culture, General Administration of Press and Publications.
• Corporate Strategies of various China game companies:
• Shanda - releases international titles in China.
• NetEase: Developes in-house games (80%).
• The9: Released World of Warcraft (98%).
• Hybridized Games: games that are thematically a blend of multiple real-world cultures (i.e. costume design merging Asian and European motifs).

“Virtual-World Unrest and the Gamer Rights Protection Movement in China”
by Matthew Chew, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University.  

• Interested as a sociologist, sociologies consider internet to be the single most powerful phenomenon driving modern society.
• Presents Chronology of Gamer Activism. Wow, don’t piss off addicted gamers who are willing to protest, vandalize, and physically kick ass in the real world over virtual game issues.
• Gamer grievances: Rent-seeking activities, mistreatment of virtual property theft, mistreatment of duping problems, termination of individual online games, technicaly instability (game crashes, lag), and “corrupted, authoritatrian rule of virtual worlds” by game corporations.
• Theoretical Implications: Game corporations as media businesses in the real-world but authoritarian states of virtual-worlds. Gamers as real-world middle-class cultural consumers but grassroot, politically active virtual-world citizens. So the natural thought progression would be: Will virtual world activism (demand for rights, freedoms, fairness, stability, etc.) spill over into the real world? Can virtual world gamers become a source of real-world political change?
• On the other hand, people often retreat into virtual worlds precisely to avoid the limitations they face in the real world. Political or social activism in virtual-worlds, therefore, may only be people grasping to protect their fantasies, viewing the gaming corporations that provide the framework for these fantasies as being far more malleable and subject to the people’s will than real world governments and intitutions. Is online gaming as a commercial transaction premised fundamentally on customer satisfaction for continued business significantly different from the social contract between the government and the governed?

Discussion:

• All papers show Internet-driven social change, whether in coal industries or entertainment gaming.

SESSION 7: Law, Regulation and Governance
Moderator: Peter Yu, Professor & Director, Intellectual Property Law Center, Drake University Law School
Discussant: Doreen Weisenhaus, Director of the Media Law Project & Assistant Professor, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong

“Regulation of Internet: technical, normative or cultural conception; a cross comparison between Europe and China.”
by Olivier Arifon, Assistant Professor, Robert Schuman University / CERIME laboratory, Strasbourg France.

“Government & Online Video in China: WeTube, not YouTube?”
by Duncan Clark, Chairman, BDA.  

• Massive VC funding of Chinese internet companies. 
• Google acquisition of YouTube an inspiration for Chinese look-alike me-toos. 
• Hard to determine who is winning amongst the top 3 online video sharing sites: Tudou, youku, and 56.
• Online video sites depend almost exclusively on advertising, but none of them are making much money so far. High bandwidth costs therefore make ongoing capital funding critical.
• Regulatory uncertainties will not go away. Traditional media such as state owned television broadcasters will use regulatory interventions to protect their position.
• Larger issue than regulatory uncertainty is the lack of profitability in the industry (server costs, bandiwdth costs, growing but low advertising revenues).
• Piracy still a main driver of demand for these sites.

Norms and the Legitimacy of Law in China: the Case of ‘Black Internet Cafes’
by Johan Lagerkvist, Research Fellow, The Swedish Institute of International Affairs. 

• …

“Myths and Reality: Too Little or Too Much Freedom for Mainland Netizens?”
by Anne Cheung, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong.  

• dsdsdToo Littel Freedom or Too Much Speech?
• Cyberbullying: Intentional, deliberate, and atargeted attack on a private citizen in the form of abusive, threatening, harassing speech, that may be recurring or repeated, over a consistent period of time, by an anonymous individual or group.
• Chinese laws protect against infringements of reputation and imply that ISPs are responsible for controlling online content.
• Suggests that the best way to prevent “cyberbullying” is to make ISPs liable.

Discussion:

• Yesterday, Rebecca MacKinnion showed us that censorship at the provider level (in her case, blog providers) was inconsistent, subject the subjective interpretations of the employees at those providers. Even if we ignore all of the issues about defining cyberbullying and the rights of free speech, how would Anne Cheung’s proposal be feasibly carried out?
• The CIRC IRC channel lit up with Anne Cheung’s presentation and quite a few good questions were asked of her, to which she conceded that she didn’t have all the answers. So, the age-old question between freedom of expression and (perhaps) the “right” to or of privacy remains?
• Interestingly, none of the examples Anne Cheung gave referenced the recent online “shaming” by Chinese netizens against perceived multinational iron-roosters with regards to Sichuan Earthquake donations. Under her prescription, could we have relied upon the law and the ISPs technically bound by these laws to stop public dissatisfaction with the charitable or lack of charitable actions by others?

SESSION 8: DISCUSSION: Internet, Tibet, and the Olympics
Moderator: Jeremy Goldkorn, Founder, Danwei.org
Discussion with bloggers Roland Soong of EastSouthWestNorth and Isaac Mao of CNBlog.org

• What happened on the Chinese Internet in 2008? Top picks: Snow Storms, Tibet, Olympics, Earthquake…
• However, according to traffic spikes at ESWN, was Sexy Photo Gate (the Edison Chen photo scandal) the biggest thing?
• The deluge of traffic from mainland China over the Edisen Chen scandal resulted in HK websites trying to get themselves blocked by Chinese GFW by posting Tiananmen 6/4 material.
• Roland talks about Tibet coverage becoming anti-CNN movement.
• Olympic Torce Relay becomes Carrefour Boycott.
• Civilian journaists are local sources who are great at providing tips. However, they cannot follow through to verify. Most cases require mainstream media to devote resources to follow through. But mainstream media also need the eyes and ears of the civilian journalists to tip them. This is a symbiotic relationship.
• Chinese netizens are heterogeneous and constantly evolving.
• Size matters because 0.01% of 210 million Chinese netizens is 21,000.
• External events are change agents, especially so far in 2008.
• What next…?
• Isaac Mao reiterates the new symbiotic relationship between traditional media and social/civilian media.

SESSION 9: Blogging and online discourse
(Part 1) Moderator: Rebecca MacKinnon, Assistant Professor, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong.

“Authoritarian Deliberation: Public Deliberation in China”
by Jiang Min, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, UNC-Charlotte. 

• Key Questions:
• Can public deliberation take place in less democratic countries? Yes.
• Do countries have to democratized first in orer to achieve public deliberation? No.
• …
• Chinese civil society and media are dominated by governemnet, and increasingly commercial influence.
• Chinese public deliberative insitiutions tend to be voluntary, dispersive, and less institutionalized.
• Conclusion: EMerging empirical evidence of public deliberationin China.  

“The Rise of Online Public Opinion and Its Political Impact”
by Xiao Qiang, Adjunct Professor, University of California at Berkeley.

• Chinese adverse to being direct with opinions. Hence propensity and pervasiveness of “zheng hua fan shuo” or saying precisely the opposite of what you mean.

Political Discourse in the Chinese Blogosphere: A Quantitative Approach”
by Ashley Esraey, Assistant Professor, Middlebury College. ”

• Research questions: Do blogs threaten the state’s ability to control access to political info in China? How different is political discourse in blogs compared to that of official media? To what extend does propaganda exist in the blogosphere? How popular are political bloggers? How interlinked are bloggers?
• Studying Blog Content: Methodological concerns: How to selecte a random or representative sample relating to politics? Could content analysis be used on the medium? What kind of protocol could capture the nuances of blogger’s language?
• Newspapers used as reference to compare blogs against. 
• Presence of pluralism and criticism more common in Chinese blogs than Chinese newspapers. Presence of national andlocal propaganda far less common in Chinese blogs than Chinese newspapers.
• Criticism in Chinese blogs approaches the levels found in Taiwanese and USA newspapers.
• Principal Findings:
• Bloggers frequently criticize corporations, often gripe about national affairs, and occassionally criticize top leaders.
• Cautious Criticism: postings that are critical often cite governmental sources aka pracice ”Rightful Resisteance.” 
• Overall, political discourse is much freer, debate more frequent, and much less propaganda.
• 25% of bloggers in sample had moderate to high traffice (250 hits or more per posting).
• Inferences:
• “Hidden transcripts” go public in new political discourse. Meaning what we used to not say is now easier to say because we have the an easier means to do so.
• Vibrant blog content could boost political knowledge.
• Interlinkages among bloggers increase the resources for political opposition.
• A small number of bloggers have shown a tendency to champion popular interest.
• Harbinger of “higher popular participation” in politics, not necessarily a “revolution.”

Discussion:

• Rebecca MacKinnion on Jiang Min’s work: Challenges the persistent, often Western, discounting of political discourse and deliberation in China simply because it does not operate under the framework of a “multi-party” system, where the notion that China is a “Communist” state fails to acknowledge that the internet (amongst other things and mediums) are enabling more popular participating in political and social matters in China.
• Does increased public deliberation in China actually prolong the existence of the one-party state, so that continuous, even minimal, improvement and empowerment becomes the excuse that a revolution is unnecessary? “We don’t need to change so long as we’re improving.”
• Ashley Esraey: Blogging may not result in revolution but it will at help people become more comfortable with expressing themselves.
• Comment from audience: The internet is taking from the government the monopoly to shape public opinion.
• Declaration of academic imperialism from the audience!
• Ashley Esraey: Research finding: Most critical blog postings made between midnight and 4am.

(Part 2) Moderator: Hu Yong, Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University

“Crossing the River by Groping for Stones: From Free Expression to Shared Meanings to Collective Political Action in China’s Blogosphere.”
by Peter Marolt, Ph.D Candidate, University of Southern California. 

• Chinese continue to believe that the power of the individual is ultimately limited but do recognize the emergence of blogging as a tool of expression.
• The Process of Social Learning: “Everything starts with free thinking.” Next step is “free expression.”

“What Chinese bloggers blog - examining the top 100 weblogs in China.”
by Hsu Chiung-wen, Assistant Professor, Department of Radio & Television & Graduate Program, College of Communication, National Chengchi University.  

• Research on Chinese-language blogs is rare, of which most focus on the censorship by China’s government and the democratizaing effects of blogging under a deterministic view of technology leading to societal and political developments. So do we have a lot of “research” that boils down to finding what we’re looking for?
• Compares the content of blog posts from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, sampled from the top 100 blogs off Blog Look.
• Findings: Technology, celebrity, and leisure blogs occupy 80% more of the top 100. No individual blog dedicated to political topics.

SESSION 10: ROUNDTABLE - Chinese journalism in the Internet age
Chair and key presenter: Qian Gang, Co-Director, China Media Project, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong
Moderator/facilitator: David Bandurski, Research Associate, China Media Project, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong.

Panel of Chinese journalists and bloggers:

• Hu Yong, Associate Professor, Peking University
• Li Yong-gang, Assistant Director, Universities Service Centre for China Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Song Zheng, Editor-in-chief, Tianya
• Zhang Dong-sheng, Editor-in-chief (Editorial Department), QQ.com
• Zhai Minglei, Editor-in-chief, 1 Bao

Left to right: ZHAI Minglei, ZHANG Dong-sheng, LI Yonggang, and SONG Zheng.

• David Bandurski asks how the government has been controlling the social internet recently. SONG Zheng responds that it isn’t convenient for him to answer.

Exciting panel but as the event has been running late and my flight back to Shanghai looms, I have to make a speedy exit. For further coverage, head on over here. 

A lot of last-minute scrambling went into getting me here to cover the 2008 Chinese Internet Research Conference @ Hong Kong University. I’ll try to go into those details later just to vent, but the important thing is that I’m here.

This event promises to be an interesting affair, with the express goal of deepening our understanding of the interaction between Chinese society and the Internet, as well as discovering the perspectives and insights of scholars studying this field.

I’ll be live-blogging this event as it unfolds. As with any academic conference, there’s bound to be a ton of research papers loaded down with with statistical jargon and the corresponding stilted academic details that seem relevant and interesting only within the ivory tower. That’s fine. Now, I’ll be taking notes and updating as we go along. If you’re following along at the same time, it may get confusing. I’ll revise for clarity and coherence with every free moment I get, as well as highlight any points I find interesting enough to mention. Additional live-blogging coverage by the fine people shown below can be found at the official CIRC blog, and I’ll be honest, so far they’ve been far faster at absorbing and regurgitating the presentations than I have been.

Note: Most italicized text are my own random comments, not those of the presenters.

Let’s get to it…

SESSION 1: New Scholars Panel: Survey Findings

1. “Don’t Blame the Internet Anymore! - A Revisit to the Internet’s Influence on Traditional Media Use and Sociability”
by Peng Tai-Quan and Jonathan Zhu, Ph.D Candidate and Professor, City University of Hong Kong.

• Existing academic research regarding the Internet vs Traditional media falls into camps: 1) Displacement: Internet use replaces Traditional Media use, and 2) Complementary: Internet use increases Traditional Media use.
• Existing acadmeic research regarding Internet vs. Sociability can also be defined with two perspectives: 2) Pessimistic: Internet use decreases offline social interactions, and 2) Optimistic: Internet use improves an individual’s social interaction scope. Pessimistic: More World of Warcraft = Less Friday night pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons games. Optimistic: Making new friends and chasing skirt by stalking them on MySpace/Facebook first.
• One of the problems with analyzing these issues is that “[w]e live in a complex, multivariate world…” In other words, the world is so complex with so many variables that trying to figure it out is ultimately pointless. Nonetheless, the Hong Kong Internet Project uses a multitude of variables in its methodology to draw conclusions about how Internet usage correlates with or impacts Traditional Media consumption and an individual’s offline social life. Amusingly, the variables for measuring “sociability” were defined as “chatting, exercising, and shopping with friends/family. Okay, I get chatting, but exercising and shopping? Are your serious?
• The results show that internet use does somewhat conflict with consumption of traditional media. This would be reasonable so long as the information absorbed through either are significantly similar to become redundant. Watching a sports game on television is qualitatively different from following updated box scores on the internet.
• However, a distinction needs to be made highlighting individuals who are simply voracious consumers of media, whether online or offline. For such individuals, internet use and consumption of traditional media are complementary rather than supplementary.
• Results also show that internet use did not seem to have much of an effect on the user’s offline sociability. At the end of the day, porn and cybersex is no substitute for the real thing.

2. “Perceived Credibility of Online Health Information in China: A Survey of College Students in Ganzhou”
by Zeng Jie and Zhou Xiang, M.A. Candidate and Professor, Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communication, Shantou University.

• Their research asks three questions: 1. Why do college students search for health information online? Self-diagnosis of STDs by browsing symptom pictures? 2. How do they perceive the credibility of the information they find? Are they affected by their gender or experience with the internet? 3. What factors affect these perceptions of credibility? How does the college student’s own medical knowledge or their involvement in the searching itself affect these perceptions?
• In conducting their research, they distributed 480 questionnaires to students at universities, vocational colleges, and medical schools, out of which they received 388 responses that they then stratified by school and gender. Is it me or does the number 8 appear disproportionately more whenever the Chinese are involved?
• Some results are reasonably expected. For example, college students search online simply because it is easy and convenient to access a multitude and variety of information. Being female or male did not seem to affect how a student interpreted the credibility of the information they found online.
• With regards to the third question, they analyzed the following factors: expertness, website function, website presentation, personalization, surface authority.

3. “Uses and development of the Internet in less developed regions”
by Li Xuefang, M.A. Candidate, Communication University of China.

• How are those in less developed, rural areas using or the web productively or view the web as a tool for productivity, as opposed to just using the web for amusement (i.e. listening to music, watching videos, etc.).

4. “Information and Expression in Web 2.0: A Study of Internet Users in Shanghai”
by Zhou Baohua, Lecturer, Journalism Department, Fudan University.

• …

Concluding Session Commentary and Discussion:
Francis Lee, Assistant Professor of City University of Hong Kong, provides commentary on the forgoing research papers/studies:

1. Technically good study, but may be better if there was more discussion of the underlying conceptional arguments, such as time-displacement (more internet = less traditional media and offline social interaction) and efficiency (is internet more efficient for communicating information and facilitating social interaction)

2. Very interesting

3. Difficult to comment on as a big-city Hong Konger who doesn’t have rural life experience. Suggests elaborating further the rural context to help others better understand the usefulness or usage of the internet by rural populations and the other statistics gathered in her research.

4. What is the “concept” of Web 2.0?

Overall: All papers suggest that Chinese are increasingly sophisticated internet users. Yeah…but is anyone actually suggesting otherwise or care to suggest otherwise?

SESSION 2: New Scholars Panel: Comparative Perspectives

1. “Chinese-written Internet: Diversity and Segregation”
by Zhou Baohua, Lecturer, Journalism Department, Fudan University.

• What is Chinese internet? How is it different from China’s Internet? Despite the utter simlistic obviousness of this distinction, it is remarkable how this is lost amongst the vast majority when it comes to viewing the “Chinese.”
• Chinese internet is diverse, while China’s internet is increasingly segregated from the Chinese internet due to government interference, such as the Great Firewall (GFW). Chinese internet is NOT homogenous, despite
• Gang Tai Wen Hua (港台文化) = Hong Kong Taiwan Culture, is it bad for the youth of China? Because, you know, they’ve had too much degenerate and debaucherous British and American influence.

2. “Virtual Jingpo: A Jingpo/Kachin Techno-community?”
by Daphne Richet-Cooper, Intern, French Centre for Research on Contemporary China.

• Jingpo/Kachin = a transnational (China/Burma) group, separated by a national border but still the same social group.
• Both Chinese and Burmese governments are repressive towards minority groups. Well…that’s debatable.
• Although they are technically the same cultural group, the internet reflects and influences them to diverge and emphasis self-identity upon their geographic location and thus national lines.

3. “The situation characteristics of language on the Internet.”
by Chen Yenling, Assistant Professor, Chinese Culture University, Taiwan.

• Communications online (including SMS) can differ from communication offline. Is this like saying “L-O-L” in real life?
• How is internet language arising from growing up in the internet culture contributing to generational gaps or gaps between those “in the know” versus those who aren’t.
• Abbreviations of words like “u” for “you” is common on the internet. What about the rampant use of casual internet abbreviations and lingo in other situations/contexts, such as professional correspondence? This is common to the youth, recent graduates, but not limited to them.
• “3166″ = Sounds like “sayonara” when spoken in Mandarin Chinese. What about “914?” A cookie for the first person to explain what this means in the comments.
• Popular culture affects what words we use to express ideas. Example given of using “Brokeback Mountain” to represent “homosexuality.” It’d be cool if she started talking about the use of images as responses/comments. Even better, cat pictures. Moar!

4. “Identification, Monitoring and State Extractive Capacity: China’s Golden Tax Project”
by Ou Shujun, Ph.D Candidate, Department of Government and Public Administration, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

• Use of internet to improve tax collection. Hehehehe.
• How can the government use the internet to improve governance as opposed to how the government can control the internet?

Concluding Session Commentary: Jack Qiu, Assistant Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Regarding the Daphne Richet-Cooper’s paper: Very interesting and full of potential, we should be paying more attention to ethnic minorities. Is the marginalization or erasure of minorities simply part of the process of nation-building or development? What about the difference between minorities within a country and minorities within a country (Xinjiang, Tu, Hui, Tibetans) that is represented by a external, separate state *Turks, Khazaks, Thai, Koreans, etc.).

Question from the audience to all the panelists: A minority can use the internet to create a disproportionate representation of reality. How have these studies corrected for this phenomenon?

SESSION 3: Presentation & Discussion: Chinese Internet User Survey

Roland Soong, of EastSouthNorthWest fame:

General Population > Internet users > Bloggers > Blogger Segments

Segmentation of interest: Psychographics

Three identifiable segments (not all-inclusive): Angry young people, followers, and progressives.

Usage of data from 144 million internet users.

Bloggers represent 0.74% of the general population. Of bloggers, females are more likely to be bloggers than males. Bloggers tend to visit portals and read blogs far more than general internet users. 80% of bloggers read blogs, compared to only 4% of the average internet user.

Deborah Fallows, Pew Internet Project: What has China’s earthquake done to its internet? What have we seen and what should we look for?

• China’s internet: two old myths and a new reality:
• Myth 1: China’s internet is all about entertainment. The new opiate of the masses?
• New Reality: China’s interent is about much, much more, as reavealed by the Chinese internet’s response to the Sichuan earthquake.
• Myth 2: China’s internet users chafe under government internet control and management. Definitely a myth. “The West” certainly chafes more than the Chinese themselves.
• New Reality: Could myth #2 actually become true, in a new online world triggered by the earthquake? Whereas Myth 2 was largely a false impression born out of the Western-projected values, could the widespread tragic events, media coverage, and government response surrounding the earthquake actually prompt Chinese to become more aware and critical of the government’s control of the internet?
• How can we compare the China internet response to the earthquake vs. the American internet response to 9/11?
• China’s internet responded to the earthquake as the immediate and first responder, an aggregator of content, creating of new applications, and a humanizer. What was the voice of the post-earthquake China internet? More unified voice (of shock), more humane and tempered, more spiritual/religious, more shocking images and videos (really?), more unedited and less censored.

Roland Soong comments that he became increasingly frustrated with the information on the internet after the earthquake. It is good at identifying problems but not good at providing solutions or answers. Certain answers were still best gotten through the mainstream media who had the means to find answers, by sending in investigative teams, etc. Soong expresses his doubt as to whether the internet is capable of providing the quality of information/answers that the mainstream media can. So is this the age battle between a marketplace of ideas and the confidence in authority?

Obvious response and question from the audience: What about mainstream/traditional media websites? Roland Soong responds that he mispoke and clarifies the issue as the difference between professionals and citizen journalists/amateurs/the unwashed masses.

Question from audience: Are people turning to the internet a representation of the inadequacy or censorship of mainstream/traditional media? Roland Soon responds that he agrees, and that his website features a lot of information and news translated from Chinese news sources that the Western media tends to pick up a day or two later.

SESSION 4: Myths vs. Realities

This is the theme of this year’s conference. Is the internet a social phenomenon, a marketing phenomenon, an advertising phenomenon? How we understand the internet can be shaped by different groups, by marketers or even academics.

1. “Discussion of methods and perspectives used in Internet research”
by Bu Wei, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

• Low fieldwork done.
• Perspectives usually from government or academics.

2. “The Great Firewall as Iron Curtain 2.0: the Implications of China’s Internet most dominant metaphor for U.S. Foreign Policy.”
by Lokman Tsui, Ph.D Candidate, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

• “Do you believe that China will inevitably change with the Internet?”
• Results of the Zogby International telephone survey in the United States on Jan 31, 2007: 43% yes.
• Contextual presumptions reflected by this question is that change hasn’t happened and that we’re thinking specifically about political issues such as free speech and other freedoms.
• Is the Great Firewall the explanation for assumptions or perceptions of internet-driven change (or lack thereof) in China?
• Lots of information about US governmental action targetting China internet interests.

3. “The Chinese Diasporic Cyberspace: Overseas Chinese Essentialism vs. Hybrid Transnationalism”
by Jens Damm, Assistant Professor, Freie Universität Berlin.

• Historically, the Chinese language itself, especially in mass media, linked ethnic Chinese around the world and linked them back to their homeland (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). Think of Chinese parents in America watching Chinese channels nightly through cable.
• Today, how is the internet helping link and diversify the Chinese diaspora?
• Essentialist websites: Focus on the “essential/eternal/unchanging nature of Chinese culture.” Often PRC academic and museum websites.
• Chinese cyber nationalism.
• The role of the internet and new technologies with connecting the Chinese diaspora.

Questions from the audience:

• What term should we use to refer to China’s internet regulation/censorship other than the Great Firewall if it is such a problematic Cold War-esque term? Lokman Tsui replies that as an academic he’s good at finding problems but not solutions.
• Jeremy Goldkorn, of danwei.org fame, makes another failed attempt to advance “Net Nanny” to replace “Great Firewall.”
• Jens Damm emphasizes his attempt to give a “post-modern” definition of “diaspora” as opposed to the “diaspora” laden with Jewish connotations.

SESSION 5: Roundtable - Corporate Action and Responsibility

Moderated by Rebecca MacKinnon, Assistant Professor, Journalism & Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong, featuring…

• Issac Mao, Co-founder, CNBlog.org
• Charles Mok, Chairman, Internet Society of Hong Kong.
• Ching Chiao, VP Community Relations, DotAsia.
• Joshua Rosenzweig, Manager of Research and Programs, Duihua Foundation
• Duncan Clark, Chairman, BDA

Discussion:

Questions from CIRC 2005:

• The Internet is changing China..but how is China changing the Internet? Many discuss the former, far fewer explore the latter…
• Role of business: What is the role of Internet and telecom companies–both foreign and Chinese–in helping to shape China’s standards, practices, and regulatory norms? Points at Cisco, Yahoo, Google, etc…
• Companies are sandwiched between governments and users.
• Quote: “Ultimately, to succeed in China, businesses must assume the goals of the Communist Party as their own.” - “Mr. X,” a “foreign media entrepreneur based in China” in the Far Eastern Economic Review.
• Foreign companies sayL “We have no choice…we have to abude by the same rules that apply to Chinese companies, or we can’t do business here.”
• Question: Is it really true that they have absolutely no choice whatsoever? Obviously not. Are companies acknowledging that they have choices?
• Rebecca MacKinnion has been doing some blog censorship testing, by posting various content across 17 blog hosts to see how they if and how they censor.
• Different websites have different censoring methods, and sometimes would even censor content from China’s own Xinhua news.
• Can we frame this issue as “consumer rights” instead of falling into the traditional “Cold War” framework of interpretation?
• Race to the bottom? As the China market becomes increasingly important, will we see companies and standards become more “Chinese?”
• MacKinnion ask Isaac Mao: Can this “consumer rights” perspective be applicable in China?
• Isaac Mao: Hard to know what the government wants, since there isn’t necessarily a single “government” player. Chinese people not yet comfortable with the concept of consumer rights. Google is so “jian.”
• MacKinnion ask Joshua Rosenzweig: Is there a solution for companies to determine what information they can or cannot hand to the government?
• Joshua Rosenzweig: Companies need to know what to do, a policy, with regards to what they’re going to do when the government comes knocking on your door. It can’t be US-centric, and must reflect the actual situation in China. Uses case of Yahoo and Shi Tao. Chinese constitution grants Chinese citizens all basic rights, but also states that such rights are subordinate to the interests of the state and the security of the state. Duihua tries to talk about the problems in China in the context of similar problems in the