Sophie Beach: Blocked By The GFW With China Digital Times

China Digital Times (CDT) is one of the most prolifically updated websites, featuring excerpts and links gathered from both traditional media and other blogs around the internet, making it a great one-stop resource for anyone wanting to keep tabs on China news and issues. Beyond aggregating, CDT also regularly offers their own original content and translations.

After scaling the Great Firewall that blocks Chinese audiences from directly accessing CDT, I was able to poke and prod Sophie Beach out from People’s Park to talk with us about who she is and what she (along with her own band of minions) are doing:

CNR: Tell us about yourself, Sophie Beach, who you are, your background, what you do, where you’re going, what makes you awesome, you know, the basics.

Sophie: I grew up in Massachusetts and Washington DC, spent many years in New York, and now live in Berkeley. CA. I majored in East Asian Studies in college and later got a Master’s in International Affairs. I lived in China (Tianjin and Beijing) in the 90s, doing a variety of things: studying, teaching, freelancing, being a researcher at the Washington Post bureau. Before CDT, I worked in the Asia division of the Committee to Protect Journalists, researching and monitoring developments in the media throughout the region but focusing on China. Now, in addition to CDT, I also do some freelance projects and, more often these days, chase my two young kids around the house. I also run a personal blog, called Hao Mama, about raising kids bilingually in Mandarin and English, though I rarely have time to post to it.

CNR: Given that CDT is blocked for us in China, I actually had to seize an opportunity while in Hong Kong to quickly subscribe to it via RSS and didn’t get a chance to really explore your website. Tell us about CDT and its background story. When/how did it start and what your goals were for it?

Sophie: CDT was started in 2003 as a class project for a course Xiao Qiang was teaching at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, to track the Internet and technology in China. There were very few China blogs out there at that time. We started to realize there was a need and demand for a more general China news site so we started adding more politics and society-related news and it just took on a life of its own. It is still run through the Journalism School. We aim to be a one-stop shop where people can have easy access to all the most important, interesting stories coming out of China on any given day, whether they were first published in Chinese or English.

CNR: So how has CDT grown and changed since then? Have your goals changed? Where are you going with it and what do you see CDT becoming?

Sophie: CDT has grown tremendously since then, both in terms of readership and in range of content we post. Even over the past six years, the quantity of China reporting has just exploded, as has the number of bloggers who cover various aspects of China news, politics, and society. We try to filter through this abundance of information to save our readers the trouble of doing it themselves. Over the past year or two, we have begun to focus more on providing content from the increasingly rich and dynamic Chinese blogosphere, both in Chinese and translated into English. We are constantly experimenting with new features to see what works and what doesn’t, and we are currently exploring ways to improve the aggregating process so we can focus more time and energy on original content and translation.

CNR: Now, as the big kahuna for CDT, is it a full-time job for you? About how much time do you spend on CDT per day/week?

Sophie: CDT is a part-time job for me, though I end up spending a few hours every day on it. It’s like our third child that needs constant care and attention.

CNR: Quite a few names pop up in the bylines for CDT’s posts. Xiao Qiang, for example, is your husband (and thus male, as Roland Soong once so helpfully corrected Elliott). Who else is involved with CDT? Are these contributors volunteers or staffers?

Sophie: We get a lot of valuable help from students and recent graduates from the Journalism School and other schools at the university, who post content, help edit the site, and translate content from Chinese. Some work on it as part of their coursework for Xiao Qiang’s class on China’s cyberpolitics, some are (barely) paid, some volunteer. We also have a few volunteer bloggers in various locations around the world who contribute. Xiao Qiang and I are currently the only staffers; he also works on the site part-time, mostly monitoring the Chinese blogosphere.

CNR: As I just mentioned earlier, CDT is blocked by the Great Firewall in China. Could you tell us more about why/how that happened? Do you know how you guys are blocked (whether by IP, keyword, etc.) and have you tried getting unblocked?

Sophie: CDT was blocked in March 2006. As far as we can tell, the IP address is blocked at the Great Firewall level. We don’t know of a specific reason though it is also not terribly surprising, given the amount of content we post that challenges the official propaganda version of the news. In a way, we take it as a badge of honor: It means our site is having some impact. We haven’t tried getting unblocked because unfortunately the Chinese government doesn’t provide any recourse to appeal when they censor you. If readers are unable to access the site in China, they can email us at CDT AT chinadigitaltimes.net and we will provide alternative ways to access our content.

CNR: Judging by the amount of material that gets aggregated and promoted on CDT, we know you’re not just an avid observer of China but also someone who keeps an eye on a broad spectrum of websites, blogs, and information sources about China. Drawing from what you see and, as always, at the risk of oversimplifying a huge topic, what is the most poignant issue facing China or the Chinese?

Sophie: One broad, overarching but urgent issue is China’s search for natural resources, which has serious implications for the environment, economic development, social inequality, and China’s relations with the world. But there are of course many others as well and I don’t want to simplify such a dynamic and complex country down to one or two key points. The CDT tag cloud provides a pretty good list of crucial issues.

CNR: What would you say is the most overrated/overplayed issue? By the Chinese themselves or by foreigners?

Sophie: Hard to say. I tend to disregard stories like the one that pops up every once in a while about how people in Shanghai like to wear their pajamas out on the street.

CNR: What are your observations, suggetions, or even criticisms for the English blogs and bloggers that cover China?

Sophie: As I mentioned earlier, when we started CDT, there were only a handful of English language blogs about China. Now there is an impressive number and range of excellent blogs, some very targeted on specific aspects of life in China, that provide very good, very real insight into Chinese society. Not all of them are worth reading everyday, but there is certainly some very valuable writing in there. For us, this has been a boon because they are a natural source of content for CDT, so my only suggestion is, keep it up!

CNR: Finally, other than CDT, what other English China blogs do you personally enjoy or strongly recommend to anyone interested in China or the Chinese?

Sophie: I always try to stay on top of Danwei, China Media Project, ESWN, and China Beat. I’ve also especially been enjoying Evan Osnos’ blog on the New Yorker site and some of the other blogs by foreign correspondents such as the Wall Street Journal’s China blog, James Fallows’ blog for The Atlantic and the Time China blog. I also read Useless Tree, Inside-Out China and Jottings from a Granite Studio for their insight into China which often comes from a different perspective than journalists’. But I’m constantly finding out about new blogs, and am now slowly making my way through your list of women China bloggers, which has uncovered some great links.

To get more Sophie Beach and a constantly updated collection of China-relevant content from around the internet, be sure to visit China Digital Times. Those blocked in China but still interested in accessing CDT content can do so by directly copying and pasting the following RSS URL into your RSS Reader (i.e. Google Reader, etc.) “http://chinadigitaltimes.net/feed”.