To me, collective amnesia of the Tiananmen incident 21 years ago fascinates and scares me. Is our understanding of history durable and resilient, ever marching on closer to the Truth? Or is it easily manipulated by commercial interests and by political agenda? Is the past completely malleable to serve the interests of those who seek to control the present and thus the future?

While the online commons of Twitter rages with the #8964 and #6421wj hashtags (see also ChinaGeeks’ translation of tweets), the events of 21 years ago seem largely irrelevant to the struggles of daily life in modern China today. Life in China is so fast-paced, demanding and full of constant change. Those who are not struggling, are far too busy pursuing the seemingly unlimited opportunities available to the privileged. Perhaps some who actually know about the Tiananmen incident are engaged in what Forbes’ Gady Epstein calls “willed forgetting in service of today’s prosperity.”

Honestly (and I may regret admitting this), I personally couldn’t care less that Foursquare got blocked (see David Feng’s blog on how this went down). Yes, I should defend the online rights of my friends who want to spam their social networks check-in with their favorite Location Based Service (LBS), because next They will be coming after my own beloved social sites.  Yes, They certainly have in the past.  But for some reason, Foursquare seems so trivial in comparison to what happened 21 years ago.  See Slate for a moving collection of photos…looking through these pictures is a far better way to “check-in” to the past.

Alec Ash writes an interesting post on Danwei that provides insights into Beida university students today vs. those 21 years ago.  Danwei itself is an interesting small case study of how you can serve the Motherland with great heart and personal sacrifice, only to get punished for doing so.  In this case, via getting their site blocked.  Because of the GFW,  I’ve excerpted heavily from the post:

What parallels, then, exist between the two generations? For all the noise about the exceptionality of China’s ‘post-80s’ youth (80后), there’s quite a few. If it’s dangerous to generalize about the class of ‘89 from the actions of a few, then it’s less risky to generalize about students as a whole. Beida students today, like Lee before them, are concerned with their grades first, their fun second, and politics even further down the list. Yes, there are the nationalistic ‘angry youth’ (愤青) just as there are those who vocally criticize their government. But most are simply too busy preparing for their exams or TOEFL to care.
The second big similarity, though, is that there’s discontent beneath the surface, on a range of specific issues. For one, the sheer pressure and competitiveness of the world they find themselves in: 10 hours of study a day for many, just like it was in high school, and just like it will be in the best jobs. Then there’s the inequality, corruption and nepotism, just like in Lee’s day － perennial problems. A more recent one is the escalating price of housing in the big cities. Where thirty years ago their parents could buy a property relatively easy, students today are facing ever-more terrifying digits. There’s much to be unhappy about.
…

Another is that the West doesn’t cut it as an alternative to admire, like it used to. Sure, everyone watches Gossip Girl or Prison Break (depending on gender), but the idolization of everything Western which Lee describes － and which has a strong whiff of the May Fourth movement to it － simply isn’t there. And when it comes to politics, there’s a definite mistrust that the Western model could work in China. A metaphor told me by more than one young Chinese describes the Tiananmen generation of having just come out of a dark room, dazzled by the brightness. Their generation, the implication goes, has adjusted to the light.

I’ve heard Beida students describe their predecessors as “impulsive” and self-interested (why “I don’t like Wang Dan or Wu’er Kaixi”, one friend bluntly said). But how do they describe their own generation? Last week alone, I heard three self-definitions: one of a “pragmatic” generation, thinking of their own futures. Another of a generation with “no ideals”, nothing to fight for. But my favorite was simply a generation with “more choice”. Or put otherwise, a generation with more to lose from making noise, and more to gain from silence.

Alec first wrote about the differences about Beida students today vs. the late 80s on his blog 6.  The topic of the “disillusionment with the West” is definitely one that has gotten stronger after the 2008 financial crisis and the perception that China has weather the storm much better than the rest of the world.  Perhaps there is some idea that if they demonstrators had gotten their way, Western prescriptions would have been followed to the detriment of Chinese society.  Instead, Chinese leaders followed their own path adapted to the conditions of China at the time, and deserve some credit for the economic results that have come about.

Some have commemorated this day. From a smattering of red umbrellas on the square itself, to the now traditional demonstrations in Hong Kong (which has experienced some harassment), there are some efforts to bring people together to remember what happened.  Here’s Taiwan’s Ma Ying Jeou’s speech in translation. Peking Duck shares a new report and also shares his own feelings:

For me, this remains an open wound, and as long as the CCP keeps stonewalling, the much beloved phrase “Reform and Opening Up” will ring at least partially hollow. Those who keep demanding more contrition from the Japanese for their crimes against humanity should demand the same from their own rulers.

I don’t have the same feelings as Peking Duck. I feel the cadence of life in China, the all-consuming nature of the daily struggle for Chinese at all levels of society, and the sense that understanding modern history in China requires much more effort and discomfort than Westerners may realize. Modern China is simply too busy to remember.  Perhaps Gady’s “willed forgetting in service of today’s prosperity” is more like “inadvertent forgetting as a result of today’s prosperity.”

Tiananmen is not an “open wound” to me. Instead, it creates an uncomfortable realization of how fragile our conception of history is, and how the busyness of life can allow the past to be forgotten.

Photo credit: Bendilaowai.

Post from: CN Reviews

21 years: Modern China is too busy to remember

The most amusing thing in the Google crisis is all the commentators crying about the loss of Google.cn and its negative consequences for the freedom of the Chinese.

No.

Wrong.

At least for this English-language China blogger.

I don’t believe that a censored Google.cn is far better than no Google.cn, much less cry about it.

I believe that Google in China is better than no Google in China. I cry about the loss of Google in China and its negative consequences for the freedom of the Chinese. It isn’t about the loss of Google.cn itself. There are several reasons, which I’ll get to in a second.

Evil is Search Engine Manipulation with Google’s name on it

But first, Uln’s argument is that the loss of Google.cn is a good thing for Chinese users because Google.cn engages in search engine manipulation (SEM). In other words, while the “engine” underneath Google.cn is the same as Google.com, the results shown are different, manipulated under agreement with the Chinese government censors to hide results the Chinese government finds objectionable and doesn’t want its populace to see. An internet user in China using Google.com would be able to see all the results but might get blocked when he or she tries to click on a result that leads to a blocked website. The user would be reminded of the government’s censorship. However, an internet user in China using Google.cn would see only manipulated results, effectively hiding both the information and the censorship. That Google.cn explicitly notifies users when results are manipulated is dismissed by Uln as being largely inconsequential because users begin to ignore it or it is often placed below the list of results.

These are all valid criticisms of Google.cn and, by extension, Google itself. Uln argues that this compromises the integrity of the Google brand name and value proposition (do no evil, we provide information, etc.) thereby betraying the trust of its Chinese users who see the Google name slapped on Google.cn as meaning something about the information Google.cn will provide. Uln writes:

When you type a “sensitive” term and G.cn removes all the results except the People’s Daily and Xinhua, Google’s responsibility is double: not only it supports those often objectible views on the first page, but it also implicitly states that it is the ONLY opinion existing in the World.

And the worse is, the Chinese who believed that would be right to do so, because Google’s well known principles clearly specify their commitment to give all the information available  in a democratic way.

G.cn is a shame for Google and it is probably the single most evil page on the Chinese internet (because it manipulates just like Baidu, but lends the brand name of Google to the manipulation).

But is a loss of Google.cn a good thing?

No.

Google.cn is Choice

Google.cn represents choice. It gives Chinese internet users another option for searching the web other than Baidu. Yes, there is Yahoo and there is Bing but neither of them are remotely as big as Google.cn, even if Google.cn is second place to Baidu. It gives Chinese internet users access to Google’s internet indexing and search methodology and algorithms. Even as Google.cn suffers the same manipulation of potentially displayed search results as Baidu, it provides different ordering and ranking of displayed search results.

This different ordering and ranking is precisely one of the main reasons why Google beat Yahoo and other search engines (MSN Search, Ask.com, etc.) elsewhere in the world. Google’s search engine returned better sorted and more relevant search results to users. Why continue finding your answers in the 3rd or 5th Yahoo search result when Google gave it to you in its first result? People started using Google because it delivered what they were looking for more efficiently.

That’s what a good search engine is about, providing the best search results for any given user inputted query, and Google is a good search engine.

Yes, having incomplete search results due to government-mandated self-censorship is bad, but Chinese users are not searching for potentially censored or blocked material all day long on Google.cn. They, you know, use it to do other fairly mundane things that don’t get the Chinese government censors’ panties in a twist. They look up news on celebrities, research product information, find the latest scores to last night’s NBA game, etc. etc. etc. Google.cn provides a valuable service to its users in China because it still helps them find the information they are looking for using qualitatively different and valuable methodology and algorithms than Baidu.

Google.cn gives Chinese internet users a choice.

Choice is freedom.

Losing Google.cn is a loss of choice.

Less choice is less freedom.

Therefore, loss of Google.cn is arguably a negative consequence for the freedom of the Chinese. It may even be something worth crying about.

The reason why “a censored google.cn is better than no google.cn” is exactly this. Google.cn still provides different results of value in the vast majority of Chinese web searches. This was very much part of the whole utilitarian argument that Google gave for agreeing to market and censor Google.cn in the first place. Even with the same scrubbed search results as Baidu, Google still has some competitive advantage worth offering to Chinese netizens through Google.cn.

No, the competitive advantage isn't only Chinese-specific Google logos.

Without Google.cn, its users will switch to Google.com, which is better anyway

Uln argues that…

Google.com is a Search Engine that is:

1- Exactly as good quality as Google.cn (identical index)
2- Without the manipulation of Google.cn
3- AND much less censored than Google.cn

…which is definitely true.

So, like Uln, some people may be asking why Chinese users use the self-censored Google.cn instead of the freely accessible Google.com? Uln answers:

And the only reason why Chinese don’t use it is that Google.cn sounds more Chinese to them, and they just don’t care enough.

No, it isn’t because Google.cn sounds more Chinese to them, it is because Google.cn is more Chinese to them.

I don’t think there’s enough emphasis given to display language being a major reason why people prefer Google.cn over Google.com. The vast majority of Chinese internet users instantly feel intimidated and overwhelmed by any website that is not written in Chinese. This is a big reason why Chinese people say “Google.cn is for the Chinese”. We can’t underestimate the importance of first impressions.

“But you can change the interface language of Google.com to Simplified Chinese…”

Never underestimate the importance of first impressions.

Hell, people even cite “google” being hard to spell for Chinese people as being a reason why Google is behind Baidu. Ever wonder why Google owns g.cn?

I feel there’s a tenuous compromise between the CCP censors and Google right now that allows Google.com to remain freely accessible despite it not providing the same manipulated search results as Google.cn. This is as long as the majority of Chinese internet users willingly head for Google.cn, as long as they see Google.cn as being tailored specifically for them, the Chinese. It’s like the GFW still allowing proxies to work so long as it achieves its mission with blocking the vast majority. The CCP information control scheme is not about preventing everyone from knowing certain things, it’s about preventing too many people from knowing certain things.

If Google.cn is no more and this leads former Google.cn users to simply migrate to Baidu, then maybe — just maybe — Google.com will remain freely accessible in China. However, if it results in too many former Google.cn users subsequently adopting and using Google.com, the CCP will indeed worry.

So a question then is how much will Google push the envelope with an unblocked Google.com. After all, Google will still have a business necessity and plan for capturing Chinese internet users, right? Even if Google does nothing to appeal to mainland Chinese users, leaving it the way it is, it could still get blocked if too many mainland users flock to it. If Google, however, intentionally seeks to make Google.com user-friendly enough to bring in substantial Chinese people to search and get its non-manipulated results, then it will be seen as a threat to the Chinese government’s efforts to control information and thus it will definitely face the possibility of being blocked outright.

And when that happens, Uln’s conclusion here…

Most probably the disappearance of G.cn will push the present G.cn users to switch to G.com, and the outcome will be increased freedom in the Chinese internet.

…will definitely look short-sighted and naive.

His argument isn’t hard to understand, though. Uln argues that this forced migration from a shut-down Google.cn to Google.com is a good thing because Google.com at least offers non-manipulated search results. Even if the Chinese users still can’t click through to the blocked websites due to the GFW, at least they can see and read the search result excerpts and, more importantly, know that such information exists out there. They would at least be aware of the existence of those dissenters and dissenting opinions that the Chinese government ideally doesn’t even want them to be aware of. That’s more freedom, right? That’s good, right?

That’s more freedom, right? That’s good, right?

Yeah, that’s good. It’s better than nothing.

Yeah, except until the Chinese government realizes that, blocks Google.com, and it indeed becomes nothing.

Nothing for the Chinese internet user. No Google.cn, no Google.com, no Google search methodology and algorithms. Only Baidu.

No choice.

No freedom.

Of course, Uln acknowledges such near the end of his post:

On the other hand, some commenters are already saying that I am too optimistic, and that the CCP will quickly come to the same conclusion I have come and block Google.com.

Without Google.com, the Chinese will learn of the Great Firewall and how to get around it, which is better anyway

But Uln continues:

The good news is that EVEN if they do block Google.com, the situation will still be better than today. The Chinese Google users will start to miss the G, and they will start to use web proxies to access Google.com, expanding their use and making the Chinese net population more conscious of the GFW and of the ways to cross it.

I’m not so sold on that situation still being better than the situation today. It is extremely optimistic, almost unreasonably so, to think a blocking of Google.com will by itself, or through the former Google users, make the general Chinese internet populace more conscious of the GFW and of the tools that could be used to cross it. Remember, most of the Chinese internet doesn’t use Google. It wouldn’t be a loss for most Chinese netizens because it wouldn’t directly affect their internet lives. If they aren’t inconvenienced in a practical manner, how can we expect a meaningful expansion of GFW-consciousness or use of GFW-circumventing tools?

Are we really hoping former Google.cn and then Google.com Chinese users are going to be freedom fighters? That they’ll become internet freedom and anti-censorship activists, handing out information on proxies and VPNs to the masses, enlightening them all?

For web searches, Baidu is the easy alternative. The one stickiness point will be Google productivity tools like Google Apps and, most notably, GMail. It will probably be easier to use a proxy or VPN than to accept losing one’s e-mail account, and this is definitely more so for companies and organizations. Yes, we’ll get a lot of these people but they’re likely and already plenty aware of the GFW, of proxies and VPNs. The real coup is not in these people expanding their use of proxies and VPNs or hoping they’ll help the general Chinese net population become “more conscious of the GFW and of the ways to cross it”, it is in them being inconvenienced so much that they demand the government unblock Google.com.

Yet, even then, it may only go as far as so they can use their productivity tools, not necessarily Google’s web search.

So where’s the “increased freedom in the Chinese internet” in that?

How is that situation really better than now?

Because a few more people will learn about the GFW and fewer still will bother to find out how to use proxies and VPNs? All this at the expense of broader daily practical choice and productivity for all the existing Chinese Google users and future would-be Google converts?

Some people surely see this trade-off as being worth-it, as being acceptable, as being desirable.

Me? I’m not so sure.

Why Google.cn is Evil and should leave China

That’s the title of Uln’s post.

It’s also a straw man.

This was never about whether or not Google.cn would or should leave China. It was about whether or not Google would or should leave China. I hope everyone caught onto the difference from the beginning. Everything is hinging on whether or not Google.cn is what allows Google, and also Google.com, to remain in China. We cannot approach answering this question without considering Google being blocked from China entirely if it doesn’t play ball with the Chinese government on Google.cn. If Google refuses to play ball on Google.cn, by uncensoring it or just shutting it down, we have to consider what may happen to Google.com. We should even expect the worst. In fact, that’s what we do best when it comes to Chinese government censorship, right? Why are we even entertaining that Google.com will remain unscathed and freely accessible in mainland China at all?

I’m not going to say there are only two possibilities. Life can surprise us at times. But requiring Google to censor its Google.cn search results was always, at heart, about the Chinese government’s insecurities with letting its citizens know too much information it fears will bring chaos to their order. It was not about dicking with Google just because it could. How reasonable is it to even suggest that access to an unrestricted Google.com can persist in mainland China, behind the Great Firewall, without a restricted Google.cn running cover?

Uln declares:

In fact, I maintain that Google.cn is the most evil product to ever have existed in the Chinese internet, and the World will be a better place without it.

No, I strongly disagree. I think it offered Chinese internet users valuable choice in most practical matters. Yes, I wish it could do so without manipulated search results but life is not black and white and sometimes we have to make the best of what we can control. You have to be in a game to win it.

No, I don’t think “the World” will be a better place without Google.cn. I think certain people in “the World” will rejoice for about a week and then continue on living their merry lives, using Google as they always have, and not really care one way or another that nearly 400 million internet users in China no longer have a user-friendly version of Google at their disposal. So no, “the World” will not be a better place, just temporarily more smug.

China, on the other hand, will definitely be a worse place without it and Chinese internet users will definitely be worse off for it.

Recommended Reading:

• “Google China cyber espionage saga” from ZDNet’s Zero Day (h/t ESWN)

Post from: CN Reviews

Google In China Is Better Than No Google In China

I read an interesting piece written by Amando Doronila of the Philippine Daily Inquirer that talks a bit about China blogs and their effect on mainstream media like newspapers. Some excerpts:

Editors of People’s Daily in Beijing [said] they do not fear the extinction of newspapers due to competition from new media (i.e. online news) distributed free to Internet users. They do not share the concerns of their Western newspaper counterparts, who have pointed out that online news is parasitical, as it is derived from newspaper reports.

The editors said they were not excited about blogs or bloggers as sources of information. They agreed with the comment that bloggers are unreliable and undisciplined as sources of news. “Stories should be based on facts,” the editors said.

The editors know their readers want to read informed interpretation of news, not just snippets of information provided by the bloggers. Blogging is anathema to the Chinese.

Well, essentially that is what I am doing right now–posting snippets of information–but I wonder why China blogs continue to proliferate in the Internet?

Bloggers answer to no one. If they unleash their wrath or opinionated curses, they do not think about the case where companies pull out their adverts or if a boycott will lead the publisher to shut down the paper. And since we are talking about controlled Communist China, what better place there is to practice journalistic freedom?

Anyway, just to make the Chinese connection, someone said “unsalaried bloggers represent low-cost Chinese laborers, professional journalists the well-paid-with-benefits American workers.” Both can produce the same results. So okay, bloggers can actually dispatch information that is worthy of journalistic sense.

Having read various China blogs and had my share of Chinese mainstream news, I have a theory: When a specific blog is targeted by the Chinese Net Nanny, more likely than not, the blog offers something which is a deviation from the actual, “normal” reporting. Thus it is newsworthy.

We’re in China, so I guess that is why blogging is anathema.

What are your views on the Chinese media and the Internet?

Post from: CN Reviews

China’s Mainstream Media Views On China Blogs & Bloggers

Stanford University Professor Takes The Onion Seriously

About two weeks ago, pretty much all the blogs about China reported on satire news website The Onion doing a China Special, redesigning their website to look as if they’ve been sold to a Chinese company, and publishing a ton of China-specific articles ranging from funny to lame. The Onion has, of course, since moved on and back to their original design now that the special is over (but archived for posterity here).

One of the more interesting reactions to The Onion’s China special is the following essay by a Stanford professor named Haiyan Lee. Apparently, it was originally posted on The China Beat but was also reprinted on Shanghaiist since the former is currently blocked in China by the Great Firewall. Here’s an excerpt:

No savvy Onion reader should be fooled by this non-too-subtle effort at mocking the sorry state of the publishing industry and the corporate takeover of the media in contemporary America. No one, really, should even be surprised that a fictive Chinese corporation is the villain of this imaginary apocalypse. After all, wasn’t GM’s Hummer just sold to an obscure Chinese company called Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd.? Bizarre as it may have sounded, that piece of news shouldn’t have surprised too many either. For better or for worse, China has been on Americans’ mind for quite some time—at least those Americans who have been paying attention to the intricate linkage between the Chinese compulsion to save and the subprime mortgage crisis that has brought the American economy to its knees, to the chattering class ratcheting up the specter of “China rising,” to the media coverage of the Beijing Olympics and the ethnic riots, to news stories about poisonous toothpaste, carcinogenic toys, and tainted milk powder.

In the new millennium, China’s has mostly shed its Cold War cartoonish image as an evil Communist regime that hates freedom and democracy but cannot stop its citizens from loving those beautiful ideals, at least not in their basements (they must have basements where they can write subversive poetry, build little replicas of the Statue of Liberty, and dream of rising up against the gerontocrats ensconced behind the Gate of Heavenly Peace). Today, the Chinese are viewed with suspicion not as ideological fanatics (that role has been taken over by Islamic fundamentalists) but as relentless profit-seekers bound by neither law nor conscience. Thus a Chinese company coming out of nowhere to take a stab at acquiring a piece of what was once the pinnacle of American industrial achievements was truly a remarkable event whose significance could not be adequately marked by mainstream media trying to steer clear of fear-mongering. Thus it has fallen on a cabal of professional satirists to spell out its full implications.

Emphases mine. Lee’s essay is very long with a sophistication befitting a Stanford professor of Chinese literature and civilization (prepare yourself for a few uncommon words like “mordant” and “arriviste“). It doesn’t just offer biting criticism of China and the United States but also veers somewhat philosophically into the very nature of politics and journalism as humor, before leaving you with both the conclusion that China brought others’ derision upon itself and the uncomfortable feeling that our derision springs from our own subconscious insecurities. Oof, heady stuff, eh? As such, I highly recommend reading the entire essay for yourself at either The China Beat or Shanghaiist »

A Cautionary Tale About Chinese Employees Examined

Dan of China Law Blog takes “A cautionary tale from China” by the Financial Times to task. The original article retells a sordid story of a German advertising company getting screwed by its Chinese employees, which Dan corrects to it being screwed by its own idiotic German boss for mismanaging (hell, failing to manage) the business:

So what did the German company in the FT.com article do wrong? It was not wrong for it to go into China and it was not wrong for it to put a local Chinese in charge. Its mistake appears to have been putting way too much trust in a small core of employees, shutting out the lines of communication to the other employees, and failing to engage in even basic monitoring of the business. Setting up and running a business in China (or anywhere overseas for that matter) completely remotely is a classic path to problems.

It was also wrong for the German owner to allow his libido to get involved in his business. We have a client in a very much male dominated industry who sends only his female employees to China because, as he puts it, he “doesn’t trust his male employees not to go on three day benders with females and do really stupid things.”

Anyway, the moral of the FT.com story is really rather basic. If you mismanage your business in China (or anywhere else) you will probably end up with some pretty newsworthy problems.

China business-heads, pay attention!

How To Legally Establish Your Business In China

A lot, a LOT, of entrepreneurs and businesses are looking to establish a company in China. Most of these people can’t read Chinese and haven’t a clue on how to navigate China’s ever-daunting laws, regulations, and bureaucracy. If there is anything lawyers are supposed to do, it’s for them to figure all of this out for you and hold your hand through it (at least in their area of expertise or specialization). This is one reason why China Law Blog is such a gem of a resource for anyone interested in doing business in (or with) China.

If you’ve done any cursory research into starting a company in China, you’ve probably already run across terms like joint-ventures (JVs), representative officers (ROs), or wholly foreign-owned foreign enterprises (WFOEs). If you haven’t, Dan of China Law Blog has compiled an excellent semi-table-of-contents guide to English information on these terms and other things to consider when establishing or expanding a business in China. An excerpt:

A WFOE will be its own free standing Chinese company, able to do just about everything a domestic Chinese company can do. We can set this company up to be 100% owned by your existing company, or we can form a new US (or Hong Kong company) to own it. Here are some articles we have written regarding the forming of a WFOE:

• The basics of forming a WFOE in China.
• An article explaining one of many reasons why it is critical to form a China WFOE correctly.
• Another article on China WFOE basics.
• A two part series laying out what it takes to form a WFOE in China and explaining China’s minimum capital requirements.

In general, to add a bit of my own experience into the mix, forming a company in China is not nearly as easy as it is in Hong Kong, but then a Hong Kong company is NOT a substitute for a proper Chinese company. As always, seek your legal advice from those legally qualified to give it. Head on over to China Law Blog to read the entire post »

Reflections Of The Rising Middle Class

In China, famous Chinese blogger Wang Jianshuo is definitely not poor. Why? He has a car. However, Wang Jianshuo is not rich either. Why? Just look at his car (yes, I’m just teasing him, he’s a down to earth kind of guy). Of course, as he himself states “rich is a relative term”, he is certainly richer than many but likewise also poorer than many (read: evil government officials).  I happen to think of Wang Jianshuo as part of the rising middle (upper-middle?) class in China, wherever that may be in China’s distorted distribution of wealth “curve”. His latest post, “I am a Rich Person?” is deeply introspective and muses about how he grapples with what kind of expectations he should have of other people in Chinese society:

I started to yield at drivers who don’t yield to people on pedestrian when they do right turn. I started to educate service people behind the window of banks to show respects to their clients. I even started to educate people in the government that they should pay respect to citizens, and don’t yell to them, because they are not their slaves; I was even naive enough to mention to them that it is the tax payers money that supported their job (I was surely laughed at loudly). Anyway, there are so many situations that I feel I am right, and people are doing something wrong.

Until one day, Wendy said this to me: “Jian Shuo, how can you be so mean to them?”

In the end, Wang Jianshuo seems to arrive at a newly rebalanced but relativist perspective on human interaction, which might be a bit jarring for those of us who cling to fairly set and seemingly objective expectations for how anyone should behave or relate to others. Regardless, there’s a ton to think about that is very personally relevant to all of us in Wang Jianshuo’s post, so I strongly recommend venturing over to read it »

Post from: CN Reviews

Stanford Professors, Establishing A Legal Company & Rich People

Like most respectable news sources, The Huffington Post publishes pieces from authors with different perspectives and often opinions that conflict with each other. Readers will invariably come across articles they agree with as well as articles that drive them to gut-wrenching disgust. Some of the writing will be awful, making you wonder how they passed editorial review in the first place, while others astound you, sometimes not just by what they say, but also who wrote them.

John Kerry, former 2004 American Democratic presidential candidate, wrote the following post published on The Huffington Post. It is reprinted in full for the benefit of CNR readers in China who cannot access The Huffington Post as it is blocked in China.

Who Lost the Earth?

When Richard Nixon first visited China back in 1972, his journey seemed far longer than the seven thousand miles that actually separate Washington from Beijing. He was bridging the gap between two worlds separated for a generation.

President Nixon understood that such a moment demanded a dramatic signal to drive home a new diplomatic reality. To do that, he chose a simple gesture, but one laden with meaning. Zhou Enlai, China’s premier, had nursed a grudge ever since Secretary of State John Foster Dulles refused to shake his hand back in 1954. And so, when Nixon walked out onto the tarmac in Beijing, he took several steps toward Zhou with his hand obviously, unmistakably outstretched. The message was clear — and powerful — and it marked a watershed in US China relations.

Our two nations have just met again at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the most important forum in our bilateral relationship. Only this time, it’s not just our geopolitics that are changing — but the earth itself. Global climate change poses a real and present danger of environmental destruction and human dislocation on a scale we’ve never seen.

America and China must change the world again. But this time a handshake alone won’t get the job done: nothing less than a complete and collaborative transformation of the global energy economy will be enough.

Between our peoples, especially on the subject of climate change, there is still mistrust and misunderstanding: too many Americans are convinced that China won’t lift a finger to fight climate change, or that China will hurt us economically if we do. Similarly, too many in China fear that the United States is merely attempting to smother China’s economic rise. And too many in the world believe that neither country will take credible and necessary action.

I believe all the doubters are wrong — but it’s up to us to craft a partnership with China that proves them wrong. What’s needed are simple gestures, backed by strong actions and concrete decisions, to move forward in a new direction.

And make no mistake, unless we act dramatically — and act fast — science tells us our climate and our way of life are literally in jeopardy. Just the basics: In the industrial era, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen from 280 to 385 parts per million. Scientists have drawn a red line at 450ppm — which represents a warming of 2 degrees Celsius. Anything beyond that presents an unacceptable risk. But unless we take dramatic action — now — we are actually headed to 1,000 ppm by century’s end. And today, over 40% of those emissions belong to the United States and China.

Undeniably, all of us must do more to meet it. But China and America — the world’s largest emitter today and history’s largest cumulative emitter — have a special responsibility. 192 nations will gather this December in Copenhagen to hammer out a new global climate treaty. Two will set the tone and define what is possible. The crucial question is: can America and China forge a partnership capable of acting boldly enough to prevent a climate catastrophe? Science tells us, the answer had better be “yes.”

The good news is that the potential is there. In May, I visited China and met with political and military leaders, energy executives, scientists, students, and environmentalists to gauge China’s seriousness and build momentum toward a deal this December. What I found was a country that had undergone a sea change. Today, Chinese investment in renewable capacity is second in the world only to Germany. They have tripled their wind capacity goals in the last two years. In the last three years, China has improved its energy intensity by 10%. China has publicly announced its intention to become the world’s number one producer of electric cars. Leaders who weren’t even willing to entertain this discussion ten years ago are now equally unequivocal — only this time, they’re arguing that China grasps the urgency and is ready to be a “positive, constructive” player in international climate talks.

It’s an impressive turnaround, but aspirational statements alone are no substitute for legal commitments on the international stage. China needs to understand that we will not enter into a global treaty without a meaningful commitment from China to be part of the solution.

Ultimately, our climate diplomacy depends on building a framework that is flexible enough to accommodate individual countries’ wants and needs, but firm enough to bring all of us on board and hold all nations accountable. That is the challenge we face: one that will be made easier as people everywhere begin to realize that in the twenty-first century, the challenge of developing clean energy sources isn’t a brake on economic growth — it is the engine.

When we look back on these upcoming years, I want to be able to tell a story in which America’s climate partnership with China becomes the clear beginning of a new era: where Americans embrace clean energy — where a 21st-century grid supports cutting-edge energy technology that modernizes America and creates millions of new jobs — where billions of Indians and Chinese are lifted out of poverty and see clean energy as an opportunity for development — and where diplomacy warms up, but the planet doesn’t, because the world’s two largest emitters came together to take responsibility and deliver change.

Those are the stakes, and this can be our world. But it won’t happen by accident. When Nixon visited China, he quoted some writings from China’s leader: “Time passes. Ten thousand years are too long. Seize the day, seize the hour.” We made real progress at this week’s meetings, but we don’t have ten thousand years to fix climate change — we don’t even have ten years. If we want to create the US-China climate partnership the world needs, China needs, and America needs, we have to seize the day. We have to seize the hour. We have to act, because otherwise the debate of the 1950’s over ‘who lost China’ will be a twenty first century debate over ‘who lost the Earth?’

Make no mistake (heh), John Kerry is a politician (when he’s not Frankenstein) and politicians are usually pretty good at these sort of unifying, motivational speeches. It really isn’t difficult to find things to pick apart in what he wrote above, but it also shouldn’t be difficult to appreciate his approach either when what he’s saying boils down to: “China, you need to commit to battling climate change.”

Of course, the more cynical of us might interpret it as: “Everyone, China needs to commit before the United States will.”

But going back to his “approach”, I’m specifically referring to how Kerry consistently lumps China and the United States together, rather than pointing his finger at China alone. It’s the whole “we’re in this together” tactic. It’s also hard to deny that pro-actively acknowledging one’s own problems, culpability, and responsibility goes over much smoother diplomatically than harping only on the other party. The latter instigates defensiveness and recriminations, while the former has a shot of actually getting the two parties close to the spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation.

The ability to communicate in this way over contentious issues is not just a personality trait of humility and consideration, but also a conscious skill many admire but many are often too impatient to practice (hangs head in shame). Insofar as John Kerry has practiced it well here, I applaud him.

What do you think? Was he being too diplomatic? Was he coddling and pandering to the Chinese? Global warming? What?

Post from: CN Reviews

Talking Diplomatically: John Kerry On Climate Change

Falun Gong, China, and biases…

Charles Custer has another great post at ChinaGeeks that touches upon a theme that have been popular on CNR recently: extremism, truths in the middle, and the understanding we “desperately, desperately need.” It also helps that he uses the the well-known Falun Gong as something of a lightning rod to make his point.

I’ve gone ahead and reprinted the entire text of Custer’s post below, again for the benefit of readers in China blocked by the Great Firewall. It appears that the page or the page’s URL trips a keyword filter, thereby reseting the connection when you try visiting it. The rest of ChinaGeeks is accessible as usual though.

UPDATE: Our man Custer has changed the URL which should be accessible now now. The links in this post reflect the new address.

Here we go:

Falun Gong and the Hardest Thing About Studying China

There is nowhere on earth we can learn about or read about without bias, but even given the assumption that bias exists everywhere, China might be the worst country in the world to attempt to study if you’re trying to assess the veracity of anything remotely controversial.

Let’s take, for example, the most recent English language issue of the Epoch Times, sitting for free on a table near the entrance of Yale University’s Hall of Graduate Studies. This issue begins their series marking the tenth anniversary marking the outlawing of Falun Gong in China in 1999, and contains several articles documenting the events that led to the ban. Specifically, they say the regime “zeroed in” on Falun Gong after the publication of Zhuan Falun (Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi’s rambling treatise). They don’t mention why, what was contained in the book, or, for that matter, that their newspaper was founded by Falun Gong members. It is as though the CCPs banning of Falun Gong was a thunderbolt out of a clear blue sky.

Of course, it’s not really a secret that the Epoch Times has an agenda. At best, their reports are “difficult to corroborate” (Orville Schell), at worst, they are an embarrassment to journalism. Still, they have their supporters. UPenn professor Arthur Waldron said “foreigners (and Chinese) who want to get a sense of what is really going on in China should pay at least as much attention to The Epoch Times as they do to the People’s Daily.”

As far as we can tell, he wasn’t intentionally being ironic, but it’s actually a great point. People searching for information on Falun Gong are likely to find a long list of articles and websites run by supporters or a long list of condemnations, depending on what language they’re searching in.

And the truth is, it’s very difficult to tell what the truth is. On the one hand, Falun Gong sounds an awful lot like some of the crazy cults that exist in the US; In the Zhuan Falun, Li Hongzhi writes that:

He can personally heal disease and that his followers can stop speeding cars using the powers of his teachings. He writes that the Falun Gong emblem exists in the bellies of practitioners, who can see through the celestial eyes in their foreheads. Li believes “humankind is degenerating and demons are everywhere”; extraterrestrials are everywhere, too; and that Africa boasts a 2-billion-year-old nuclear reactor. He also says he can fly.

On the other hand, at least some of the reported rights violations — which include some pretty horrifying things — are probably true. After all, the CCP is willing to abuse other citizens with reckless abandon, so why would Falun Gong practitioners be any different? As is often the case, it seems the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, but when it comes to China, the extreme voices are often so loud they completely drown out any moderates. Here, it’s People’s Daily vs. Epoch Times. A few weeks ago, it was People’s Daily vs. World Uighur Conference. Whenever the next issue comes up it will happen again.

The problem, of course, is that most people don’t care as much as we do, and aren’t willing to spend hours sifting through drivel and propaganda for the little nuggets of truth that accidentally got left lying around. So they end up believing that either one side or the other murders babies, and everyone digs in further. Falun Gong is an “evil cult” or China is an “evil empire”; there is no middle ground.

This kind of extremism prevents understanding when understanding is what we desperately, desperately need.

For the record, I personally think that Falun Gong is about as crazy as Scientology, and that China has every right to ban the spread of anti-science superstition as it leads to people making idiotic medical decisions; but I also think China could easily enforce this ban in a way that is nonviolent and that allows Falun Gong believers to think whatever they want (and do whatever exercises they want) so long as they stop telling people qigong can cure all of their diseases.

Also for the record, I’ll be monitoring the comments here pretty carefully as this has the potential to lead to its own idiotic screaming match between extremists. What we’re talking about here is how extremism prevents learning, growth, understanding, and intelligent discourse (or how it doesn’t).

Read this excellent post at its original location here »

Chinese websites for product reviews…

We haven’t featured an Adam Schokora “Friday 5″ post in a while so we’re a bit overdue for recommending that CNR readers take a gander over yonder for a collection of notable websites and web resources in and for China, this time for product reviews for restaurants, travel, cosmetics, information technology (IT), and education:

travel ::
Visiting someplace new with an untested tour agency can be an unsettling prospect, so many Chinese netizens turn to specific websites that offer peer recommendations and ratings. General review sites for travel include the popular portal for booking plane tickets and hotels, Ctrip (http://www.ctrip.com/ ). CTrip features a destination guide (http://destguides.ctrip.com ) whose landing page lists top-rated destinations, which at the moment are Hunan’s Zhangjiajie (http://bit.ly/oPHbt ), with over 11,626 reviews, and Yunnan’s Lijiang (http://bit.ly/yoij8 ), with around 1,600 reviews. Each review page has a combination of photographs, routes to nearby tourist and scenic spots (such as the Tiger Leaping Gorge outside of Lijiang), and a temperature graph for the area. In addition to rating the sites, netizens can ask and answer specific questions. The review section of travel portal Let’s Travel Together (http://www.17u.com/comment/ ) is more comprehensive, with destinations in every major city including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong, and smaller ones such as Wuhan and Suzhou. The website has community features in addition to straightforward reviewing: 17u hosts a blog section (http://www.17u.com/blog/ ) whose posts can be promoted through a “digg”-type system. On a smaller scale is the Yododo travel website (http://www.yododo.com/ ), which lets netizens search for reviews and upload videos from their favorite destinations (http://bit.ly/LYxf1 ). Yododo’s reviews are short and quick (http://www.yododo.com/review/ ), more like a message board than the in-depth analysis encouraged on other sites, and feature only one or two lines for each city. The range of travel review websites is quite broad: many individual destinations have websites devoted to them alone, where netizens can appraise food, lodging, and attractions. Zhangjiajie, for example, has a travel site with a review section (http://www.zjjok.com/dianping/ ), and the city of Wuhan hosts a travel website (http://www.gotowuhan.com.cn ) with a review subsite (http://dp.gotowuhan.com.cn/ ), as well as blogs (http://blog.gotowuhan.com.cn/ ) and a BBS discussion forum (http://bbs.gotowuhan.com.cn/ ).

If there’s a problem with Schokora’s “Friday 5″ posts, its the fact that the vast majority of these websites are all in Chinese and thus difficult to use for anyone who doesn’t actually read Chinese. Nonetheless, it’s free market research and information, which would be useful for anyone business-inclined. Do with it as you would. Read the full monty here »

China has more internet users than America has people…

You may have already heard the recent news that China now has a whopping 338 million internet users, especially since it got plenty of play on all the major news portals presenting it as a “hm, that’s interesting” news item of the moment. For those of you who haven’t, ChinaGeeks ran an a post a few days back with more “hm, that’s interesting” comparisons to help you digest what 338 million is like, along with a brief question as to how these massive and growing numbers relate to China’s internet censorship. An excerpt:

To start with, let’s get a handle on just how large a number that is. If every single person in the United States used the internet, we wouldn’t hit that mark. In fact, according to the US census bureau, China has more internet users than every other country has people (except India). But perhaps a visual aid is in order:

100,000,000 pennies.

That’s what a hundred million pennies would look like, stacked as tightly as possible. 300 million pennies would weigh over 900 tons, or approximately the weight of six blue whales. For an alternative frame of reference, open this site 338 times and count the dots. That’s how many people are using the internet in China right now.

Of course, by the time you finish counting all of those dots, there will be more. A lot more. In the past six months alone, 40 million Chinese people have joined the ranks of China’s netizen community. Some Chinese are using their phones to access it (155 million). Some are playing games (30 million new online gamers in the past six months). Some are online shopping (14 million new users in the past six months). Plenty are downloading music and watching videos.

Yeah, there are a lot of people in China. This is just another way to wrap your head around it. Go read the entire post »

Bonus! If you’re a bit well-versed in the internet or curious to learn more, you can also venture over and read a piece by a certain Ian Bell who is very skeptical of China’s internet numbers, suggesting that the government is playing up the numbers to attract foreign investment. If you’re well-versed in the internet industry, you’ll probably spot the glaring assumptions and errors in rationale immediately (i.e. Using Compete, Comscore, and Alexa to measure Chinese internet traffic? Are you serious?). If not, be sure to read the comments by Kaiser Kuo and Sage Brennan underneath the post.

I personally want to insinuate (well, so much for that) that Ian Bell’s approach to the issue is tainted with a bit of ethnocentrism, most telling in his flabbergasting of why “giants” like Microsoft, Google, Cisco, eBay, and Yahoo! haven’t been as resoundingly successful in China as he imagines they should be. The implication that they were somehow deceived or denied success by the shady Chinese government damnably overlooks the first thing that matters in business: how well one’s service/product meets the needs of the target market. So why does Ian assume success for them? Just because they were successful in the West?

Ian does make a few other tangential points in his piece, many of which aren’t really points as they are clichéd snipes, but I won’t discuss them at this time. Either way, the responses by Kuo and Brennan have good information for anyone interested in China’s internet scene. Go ahead and take a gander »

That’s it for this week. Have a link to a blog post that shouldn’t be missed? Be sure to share it with everyone in the comments, and don’t forget to tell us why you recommend it!

Post from: CN Reviews

Persecuted Religious Movements, Product Reviews, & Internet Stats

Before I get to the star attendees, I do want to say a few more words about BCB: Great cozy location, great microbrews (try the one with the gold medal…er, because it won a gold medal), great food, and great for Western expats that has been in China long enough to long for some good brews and modern American food. I say that last bit because you new arrivals should really TRY to integrate a bit more before crutching it to BCB.

The Shanghai bloggers that attended the “Shanghai Blogger Summit” organized by Adam Minter of Shanghai Scrap fame included:

• Richard Brubaker of All Roads Lead To China,
• Elaine Chow of Shanghaiist,
• Charlie McElwee – China Environmental Law,
• Malcome Moore – Telegraph Blogs,
• Micah Sittig of ShanghaiExpat Public Transportation Blog,
• Edna Zhou also of Shanghaiist, and…
• your’s truly.

For this week’s Weekly Review, I’d like to highlight these individuals with a sample from the past week of the great writing, reporting, and commentary that come from them, all of which are related to China and useful towards a better understanding of just what the hell is going on around these parts:

Richard Brubaker: Rudd Proves Theory. China Cannot Win.

A lot of coverage recently has once again thrown China (the prosecutor) into the spotlight for charging Rio Tinto’s GM and 3 employees (The Innocents) with espionage. It is a situation that has gradually escalated from a period of concern (when no one knew what happened to the executives) to this recent statement from Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd:

[...]

Essentially, Kevin Rudd has threatened economic sanctions should the executives not be treated fairly (i.e. released ASAP).

From the viewpoint of China, it is quickly becoming yet another media storm that they are in fear of loosing control over. AGAIN.

That, regardless of whether or not they are arresting executives at MULTIPLE Chinese firms as well for being apart of the same crime, their own foreign ministry is having to put out a fire that is moving faster than a brush fire. A storm only picking up in intensity as Commerce Secretary Locke has also publicly stated his concerns, and intention to discuss the issue.

Were China not consistently being chided for its corruption, then perhaps I would be a bit more understanding or apathetic to the Australian side, but I cannot.

China has been a punching bag for many over the years for commercial and political corruption, and now that “one of their own” has been caught up in it, the tables are turned. That now China is being too heavy handed, is risking economic ties, and that everyone in China should beware.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Elaine Chow: China India War in 2012? We say not likely.

So admittedly we’re not an expert in India-China relations, but last we checked, they weren’t exactly sour. Sure, we’re not best buddy-buds with our neighbors to the South, but we seem to back each other up a lot on certain issues (like climate change).

According to one Indian analyst though, we’re poised to attack them by 2012. Bharat Verma, editor of the Indian Defense Review, told the Indian Economic Times that “there are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century.”

He listed a couple of points that outlined why we would ever engage in such a useless, costly, and geopolitically upsetting move:

• Pakistan is not doing well in its fight against India, and this matters to us because China “controls” Pakistan.
• India is totally allying with the US and the West, and China’s scared about that because “the alliance has the potential to create a technologically superior counterpoise.”
• There is unprecedented internal social unrest thanks to the economic slowdown and China will deal with it by diverting troops away from where the social unrest is happening and into a country it has yet to find beef with.

Okay, so maybe you’re getting that we think Bharat’s a little bonkers (we’re not the only ones). Really though, a war with India seems like the last thing China would want at this stage, especially since it seems more content to temper relations by becoming economically necessary to the country its rivaling. Besides, (as Verma admits) India would be pretty screwed if a war really happened.

Charlie McElwee: Litter Bugs

Littering is endemic in China.  We made the mistake of visiting the Great Wall during the height of Spring Festival: it goes without saying the top of the wall was a sea of people, but a glance over the side revealed a sea of debris and steady barrage of plastic bottles, wadded food wrappers, and children’s excrement (gathered in various media) being hurled at some unseen invader on the slopes below.

In urban areas, armies of paid street sweepers attend to this phenomenon with their twig brooms. It is in rural areas where litter becomes more of a problem, as no one bothers to remove garbage without residual value. Much of the waste will make its way into streams and rivers.  China Daily ran a story today about how the Kuzhu river “near World Heritage site Zhangjiajie National Forest Park” in Hunan Province “is being polluted by thousands of tons of waste being dumped directly into the river.”

Locals blame the increased trash on the rise of tourism.  This could well be the case if our Great Wall experience was any indication.  The solution?

Adam Minter: A US Expo 2010 pavilion, after all.

I’ve been following the mostly sad saga of the US pavilion for several months now, both on Shanghai Scrap, and elsewhere. And, until two weeks ago, there was absolutely no reason to believe that a participation agreement would ever be signed. Shanghai Expo, Inc., a non-profit authorized by the US State Department to fund-raise, design, build, and operate a US pavilion, had failed to raise sufficient funds to break ground. At yesterday’s signing ceremony, Beatrice Camp, the US Consul General in Shanghai blamed the underwhelming fundraising on the global economic crisis – a point that was picked up by the Chinese media. No doubt, the economic crisis played a role, but as Camp and others close to the US effort surely know, the other important factor was the inexperienced and increasingly erratic trio running the non-profit Shanghai Expo, Inc. As recently as last month, one of its members – Frank Lavin, a former US ambassador to Singapore and Undersecretary of Commerce – issued a press release falsely claiming that the US Congress had “adopted” a resolution in support of the US pavilion. This incident, and others like it, succeeded in alienating potential donors (including major US corporations with operations in China), vast swaths of the US expatriate business community in Shanghai, and – most crucially – members of the Shanghai government. For those of us following the events, the question was no longer “How badly will the US damage its relationship with China if it doesn’t participate?” but instead became “What’s worse for US-China relations? Turning down Shanghai’s Expo invite or continuing the current, incompetent effort?”

Malcome Moore: Journalists in China get death threats

Now I know that only a tiny, if vocal, number of people send death threats and attack Western media “bias” across the internet.

But a distrust of foreign reporters has seeped into the general population. Reporters working in China in the 1990s say that people were far more open and willing to talk. Now they feel that if they open their mouths, their words will be twisted.

In short, the propaganda has worked. Since 1991, when the Patriotic Education Campaign was launched, Chinese kids have been taught a narrative about how Western forces, bent on colonisation, have historically humiliated China. (You can argue that kids in Britain also get taught a skewed and patriotic history, but at the same time, they get taught to question their teachers.)

The 1999 Nato bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, in which three Chinese died, and, more recently, the attacks on the Chinese Olympic torch parade in Europe and America, have fed into that narrative.

And this has helped pave the way for the giant leap of logic that trivial mistakes, such as a skewed caption on a newspaper photograph, are “proof” of a continuing Western ambition to “get” China.

Edna Zhou: Legalized prostitution in Taiwan stirring debate

Recently, after pressure from sex workers for protection rights, the government in Taiwan has taken steps toward legalizing prostitution. In six months’ time, sex workers in Taiwan will no longer be prosecuted for their trade, and a red-light district may be set up in the capital, Taipei. While it is obviously controversial, we thought we would take a look at the debate for decriminalized prostitution, and what legislation in our neighbor across the strait might mean for us mainlanders.

Taiwan outlawed prostitution 11 years ago, yet The Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters, a Taipei-based advocacy group, estimates that 600,000 people work in sex-related jobs under the guise of ‘tea houses’ and ‘massage parlors’.

Under current law, prostitutes have to pay either a 30,000 TWD fine or spend three days in detention if arrested, while their clients walk away unscathed. The new initiatives in Taiwan would help protect prostitutes from both their customers and the police.

Naturally, it was a lot of fun meeting these people, putting faces to the names I’ve read and heard so much about. After all, we do share a common interest in chronicling our experiences and perspectives of China in written form. What you can’t always derive from writing, however, is getting to know people as they are in “real” life. They were a great bunch of people.

Now, I wasn’t taking any notes or meeting minutes or anything but for posterity I did want to share some of the topics we all talked about and, albeit often a bit cynically, laughed about:

1. The “Shanghai Blogger Summit” as manifestation of our inferiority complex to Beijing bloggers who all know and meet up with each other far more actively.
2. Blocked blogs, notably Danwei.
3. James Fallows and the problem of us incestuous China bloggers writing to ourselves, our in-country audience, and not to audiences abroad who more often than not simply do not know what we know and take for granted.
4. Green Tours, Red Tours, and where Hu Yaobang is buried.
5. Chinese university students who know about 6/4.
6. Environmentally damaged land in China.
7. Factories and businesses with frightening labor and safety standards.
8. Journalists staying in dodging “three-star” China accommodations with scandalous artwork.
9. Co-owner of Boxing Car Brewery Gary Heyne’s involvement in bringing brew water to Iraq.
10. Quickly deteriorating former Olympic venues in China and Athens.
11. The forehead-slapping glut of Beijing commercial real estate.
12. Improving freedom of movement and reporting for journalists in China.
13. Africans protesting, and why we heard about it.
14. Visas and the unlikelihood of getting deported from China these days.
15. How blogging has or hasn’t helped people with their business.
16. Uigurs.
17. The Chinese government’s proclivity for doing things in the worst possible way (mostly PR-wise).
18. Marks & Spencer’s opening in Shanghai.
19. Malcome Moore getting abused by British expats on his blog for giving Marks & Spencer’s Shanghai store a bad review.
20. People falling to their doom in Marks & Spencer.
21. Experiences with United States Consul General Beatrice Camp.
22. Summer Camp.
23. Malcome Moore getting abused on his blog in general.
24. Weird names Chinese people name themselves (i.e. Three Hundred, Snake, Zero, Cocaine, and Creamy).
25. Harrowing airplane experiences (i.e. aborted landings and engines exploding into flames mid-flight).

Did I miss anything?

Wait…uh…is any of this going to incriminate any of us?

Post from: CN Reviews

Shanghai Blogger Summit: Not To Be Outdone By Beijing Bloggers

After one year, chinaSMACK…

• Has over 300 published posts;
• Has more than 16,500 comments;
• Receives over 220,000 visits per month;
• Has over 3500 daily subscribers;
• Was a victim of a DoS attack for a week;
• Has switched hosting servers 4 times;
• Is still here.

These are pretty cool accomplishments, right?

Emphases mine.

Then, they went down for the count as 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable error messages started returning for anyone trying to access www.chinasmack.com.

Half a day later and as of this writing, chinaSMACK remains inaccessible. We’ve e-mailed them to see if it’s another D0S attack but have yet to receive a response.

If this is indeed another DoS attack, there is also another possibility other than chinaSMACK “asking for it” by somewhat patting themselves on the back for a) surviving the previous attack and b) still being around. Over the past few days before chinaSMACK went down, a lot of discussion about the recent Urumqi riots were cropping up on chinaSMACK with the usual China bashing that chinaSMACK sees plenty of. As some people demanded that chinaSMACK do a post on the issue, others cautioned against it, suggesting that chinaSMACK would run the risk of quickly getting DoS attacked or harmonized if they did so.

While we don’t know what their reservations were for not covering the news item that has dominated the mainstream media and most other English-language China blogs, they certainly didn’t go there. However, the commenter community (including myself) continued to commandeer the comments of another post and discuss the issue. Following chinaSMACK going down last night, at least one regular chinaSMACK commenter has suggested on Twitter that the off-topic commenting may be to blame for the website’s current woes.

Post from: CN Reviews

chinaSMACK Celebrates Surviving DoS, Then Goes Down

Weekly Review:

CHINAYOUREN Blocked

So guess what now:  I am blocked.

I am banned, prohibited, harmonized, river-crabbed. Censored, in short, by the Great FireWall of China. If you are reading my blog now and have not noticed anything strange, it is because either:

1- You are reading the blog from outside China and therefore you are not going through the GFW (Chinayouren is hosted outside China, you are on the same side of the Wall). Or else,  2- You are reading this from mainland China and you are using some means to connect anonymously and pass through the wall. Most probably a web proxy or  VPN, which is what I am using now.

So, just to get this clear: my website works normally, there is no change at all in the blog itself, since the server is out of the reach of Chinese authorities. The only thing that is happening here is that the GFW is preventing users in China to access my domain. You can read more on how this works here.

I know this was bound to happen some day, and I though it would be funny, and it would make me proud in a way, because not every blog is important enough to be censored. But no, it is not funny at all. Although I can easily connect and write using my VPN, the 50% of my readers that are based in China can not do it so easily (actually they can, but they will not bother, I know this very well because I have been in that situation before and I also got lazy with blocked blogs).

There is of course an added point that makes the GFW censorship extremely annoying: it does not officially exist.This means that there is nowhere I can go to complain, and if I do find my way to the relevant government office, nobody will admit to having blocked my content. And what is worse, I have no idea of how serious their block is, or how long it will last, which makes it very difficult to find a solution. Why? Because if I pay the money and waste the time to move to a different host, I have no guarantee that I will not be blocked there the very same week.  Or  worse still, that the censors decide to unblock my original site just when I had paid the fee for the new host…

As you’ll notice, I’ve gone ahead and reprinted the entire text of these posts for the convenience of our readers who aren’t inclined to twiddle with VPNs and proxies to get to ULN’s GFW’ed blog.

Censorship is a popular China topic, and for good reason: it affects just about everyone, and perhaps most poignantly for foreigners who have a larger frame of reference than local Chinese who have never or experienced, er, better.

GFW 1st July: Waiting for my Anonymous saviours…

So OK, I am censored, but why NOW?

I mean, I haven’t been writing anything for ages, is the Propaganda Department punishing me for being lazy? Has some big Chinese BBS  linked to me recently, is Uln hot now? As I was looking around for an answer, I found out that the Peking Duck blog was blocked more or less at the same time as mine, and it was asking the same kind of questions.

That is when I got this idea of the LIST, which I wrote on their comments. Everyone knows that GFW is unpredictable, it starts and stops and nobody ever knows why, if you don’t believe me look at this funny chronology. But this random behaviour usually affects only some websites, and never touches others. So necessarily, the guys at the GFW Control Deck are working with a number of websites that have been shortlisted beforehand.

I am quite sure of the existence of this LIST, because I noticed very precisely the moment my blog was shortlisted. It happened earlier this year with that political post that was picked by the New York Times. Since then I had strange things happening, with miniblocks now and then, a perceived slower speed loading in China, and, of course that particular Charter08 post has been blocked ever since (even as the rest of the blog remained open). Also, look at that weird comment in Chinese in that post, where the guy says I am interfering in China’s internal affairs… could be a troll. Or could be not.

Anyway, my guess is that this blog and the PKD’s block have probably nothing to do with our recent activity, but rather with the tense atmosphere in the censors office these last weeks, after the Green Dam fiasco and the Google affair. At some point someone must have said: “hey, let’s block some more sites”, and we were unfortunately the next names on the LIST. And, unlike Google, I am afraid sites speaking specifically of politics are blocked permanently, such as this one, or this one. I hardly imagine the censors taking the trouble to monitor our blogs every day to see if we are behaving better. So my guess is, both for me and for PKD, that the block is here to stay and there is no solution.

… or perhaps there is?

You might have seen this manifesto of the Anonymous Netizens,  found on the RConversation blog. They promise some action on the 1st of July.  I like the document, it is well written and, unlike other efforts, it is very clever in that it sticks to its objective and doesn’t try to change the World from zero. It doesn’t ring very Chinese to me thoughLook at these 2 extracts (but if you got time read it all):

For the freedom of the Internet, for the advancement of Internetization, and for our rights, we are going to acquaint your censorship machine with systematic s