From the timing of the re-organization, Guangming Daily has clearly made a careful decision.  First, the action took place at the end of December.  Basically, the Beijing Times subscription orders for year 2006 would have been mostly sent in by then.  Secondly, if the workers protest and quit immediately, the newspaper can save a significant sum in year-end bonuses (note: the Chinese New Year begins near the end of January).

The situation is now clear.  From the experience of previous efforts to re-organize newspapers, Beijing Times will not be able to maintain its edge and dash, and it will probably become another government mouthpiece like most of the newspapers now.  The sister publications Southern Weekend and Southern Metropolis Daily are examples.

The changes begin at the senior level with core members being removed or replaced one at a time.  This causes the quality of the newspaper to tumble.  Some Beijing Times workers believe that before Guangming Daily took action against Beijing Times, they must have obtained the consent of Southern Daily.  Therefore, they believe that they were betrayed.  At the moment, some of the editors and reporters at Beijing Times are hunting for jobs and it is expected that a considerable number of core members will be departing after the Spring festival.

As Beijing Times has established a good brand image and won a certain social trust, Guangming Daily will be able to enjoy the fruits in the short term.  Yet, the parent organization Guangming Daily has few readers and low circulation, so it is hard to see any long-term prospect.

I love the first paragraph.  It is all about money.  Whatever happened to ideological purity?

Reporter: Concerning the drop in the tv ratings for Artistic Life recently, how do you see it?

Zhu: ... Television ratings are just something cranked out by a machine.  It remains to be seen whether there is any science in it.  It is just some data for reference.

Reporter: You do not value ratings then?

Zhu: I feel that the media ought to have responsibility.  This is not about making up something that will attract eyeballs.  The more important thing is to let people think and to bring them meaningful programs, especially in a country like China with a deep traditional culture.  If this is just about pursuing television ratings, I could just bring a dog along.  This is the Year of the Dog, right? (laughs).  On today's program, I will shave off the hair on the left side of the dog's head.  Then I will ask the audience to send SMS to guess which other part I will shave tomorrow?  This kind of entertainment will definitely raise the ratings.  If you want to compete just for ratings, then there are too many ways to do it.

Reporter: Do you think that this is a form of entertainment?

Zhu: It is entertainment, but it would be wrong to say that it is purely about entertainment.  It is even worse to entertain for the sake of entertainment.  The program group receives a ratings report each week.  When this week's ratings are lower, some group members get worried.  So I tell them, "You do your own work well and don't let that affect you.  It is normal for the ratings to go up or down.  For example, when Jewel Of The Palace was on air, its ratings were very high and the other programs had lower ratings.  When that show is over, the other programs will come up again.  There is nothing strange about that, right?

[in translation] During the visit to the Three Rivers Source Protected Zone, a pretty local girl was the guide.  She clearly loved her hometown.  I asked her how could a person who loved the Three Rivers Source be actively supporting the construction of the electricity generator plant.  She looked at me strangely and said, "The electricity generator plant will be good for the people.  You don't expect us to be so impoverished as to not even have a piece of cloth to cover our arses in the name of environmental protection?"

... Many places along Nujiang are nationally designated poor counties.  The counties generate less than 20% of their financial budget from their own revenue (note: the rest is picked up by the provincial and national governments) ... I visited a peasant home and I observed their "house" and their belongings.  It was enough to make me feel the sort of sadness that causes people's eyes to ache.  A local official responsible for children aid told me that I was only seeing those families that had the means to live.  Previously, they had accompanied a UN aid official to a village that was destroyed by a mudslide.  For one family, their entire possession was a blanket issued by the aid department and a small piece of cured meat that had turned black.  The householder said that this piece of meat was meant to be saved for later, but some had to be given to the sick child that day.

... While I was there, the most frequent thing that I heard was this: Are you against the electricity generator plant?  How about this?  You gather all the opponents here in Nujiang canyon and if you can survive for two months eating the food that the Nujiang people got out of their land through their own labor, then maybe you are qualified to start talking about opposing the electricity generator plant!

[in translation]  Four months ago, Yu Hua opened his personal blog and this became a sensational news item.  Very quickly, the number of visitors went into the hundreds of thousand, and Yu Hua enjoyed it greatly.  He reflected: "Can I sell so many books in such a short time?"  Yet, four months later, Yu Hua is rueful.  He told the reporter frankly yesterday: "I never thought that the netizens would be so enthusiastic in leaving comments.  I started off wanting to answer every comment, but now I found that to be impossible."

Apart from this, the complex nature of the Internet environment also surprised Yu Hua, who is new to using the Internet.  There were malicious attacks, there were self-promotions and there were people who want to use the space to post advertisements.  Yu Hua had no better idea than to delete the "trash" as quickly as possible.  Compared to his early enthusiasm, Yu is now more low-keyed after these 'setbacks.'  He is no longer writing new posts, but he is just copying some lesser known essays written over the past ten years.  "I want to be lazy, so I thought of this method.  If I post once every few days, the inventory should last three or four years easily."

After attending a class on "opinion battle" for editors-in-chief, you told us back at the office that you have "finally totally understood."  What did you understand?  You understood that "propagandizing" comes from "needs."  At the meeting, you pointed to our reporter who was covering the Ren Changxia case, "Everybody knows that the relationship between Ren Changxia and her husband was very tense, but when you write the case up, you should write that relationship as being better.  This is a matter of need." ...

As for "opinions", you "understood" how it came about.   You can create rumors and tell lies.  You said, "This was how America went to war against Iraq!"  Never mind whether America was like that or whether American media were like that.  Even if that were true, we should not imitate their example.  Creating rumors and lies based upon "needs" means making up and re-arranging facts.  Such behavior have been thoroughly rejected by Chinese media, at the repeated insistence of the Central Propaganda Department.  You came over from the People's Daily.  Did the colleagues at People's Daily not reflect with pain and regret that their "propaganda" and "opinions" during the periods of the Great Leap Forward, the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Cultural Revolution" caused grave damage to the country and the people?  Are such behavior not to be rejected thoroughly forever by all party newspapers, including our newspaper?  Did you not notice when you spoke about how you "finally totally understood," some people in the audience were snickering?

There were in fact some honest exchanges between the two later on and Li Erliang would turn out not to be an implacable party hack from those notes.  Fast forward to January 2005.  In the recollection by Li Datong (see previous post):

On January 11, the Freezing Point special article published Mr. Yuan Weishi's essay: "Modernization and History Textbooks."  Mr. Yuan used solid historical material to criticize the history textbooks used in junior middle school.  The essay was sent to the editor-in-chief for review, and he did not agree with its publication for the reason is that textbooks represent national activities that cannot be criticized.  I disagree with this reason.  So we can't talk about party history, but why we can't we talk about late Qing history?  Mr. Yuan's essay only offered some historical materials and conlcusions known to everyone in the history field.  So why can't it be published?  Of course, this subverted the sayings in the middle school next book, but the television drama <<Going Towards The Republic>> was even much more subversive and CCTV let a hundred million people watch it.  This reason seemed to have convinced the editor-in-chief, who agreed to publication with some minor deletions and editing.

On January 25, Freezing Point was shut down for re-organization.  Included in the notice from the Central Propaganda Department is this item:

1. A notice of criticism will be directed at China Youth Daily party deputy secretary and editor-in-chief Li Erliang and China Youth Daily Freezing Point Weekly editor Li Datong;

2. China Daily will stop publication of Freezing Point for the purpose of re-organization, and impose appropriate economic sanction(s) against the responsible person(s).  Freezing Point Weekly will stop publication for re-organization as of January 25, 2006.

Li Erliang may have lost his New Year bonus this time.  Poor baby!

[loose translation; loose because he is too funny and I can't reproduce it in English]  Since you know that Comrade Anti has ruined two blogs already, he must have ulterior motives over at Sina.  We know that Sina blogs have the characteristic of being clean -- like an obsessive-compulsive person, they clean the space every day until it is spotless (with the exception of the social and entertainment news sections, of course).  So a dirty-minded person like Anti wants a Sina blog for one and only one reason -- he wants to become a human suicide bomb to check the sensitive keywords at Sina, to test the endurance of the editors and the nerves of the supervisor (and whether the delete key on the supervisor's keyboard is functioning properly).  So Comrade Anti will be a mine sweeper who is going to step into the minefield and detect the sensitive words one by one.  In the end, though, we all know that Comrade Anti's blog will be dead.  The only question is the manner of death ... Will he die alone in the minefield?  Will he take Sina down with him by detonating the suicide bomb?  Or will he become yet another Sina celebrity blogger and forget about the mission?

「假如有了互聯網，年輕人從早到晚都忙坐在電腦屏幕面前msn或icq了，誰還有時間和心情跑到路上揮舞三面紅旗﹖有了互聯網，年輕人可忙得緊，看圖、寫blog、打機、BT、eMail……在網絡天地裏，每個年輕人都是自主自立的毛主席，發號施令、改造世界，幹啥還要聽什麼黨委書記或鬥委主任的瞎指揮﹖在各式各樣的留言版上，幾位『糞青』互通八卦、月旦人物，自成一個虛擬的『四人幫集團』，還有必要忠心耿耿於北京城內的那幾位長相惡俗的阿叔阿嬸﹖」

If the Internet had been around [during the Cultural Revolution], the young people would have been too busy sitting around all day in front of the computer montior doing MSN or ICQ.  Who has the time to run around the streets waving the Three Red Flags?  With the Internet, the young people are too busy viewing pictures, writing blogs, playing online games, BT, eMail ... in the Internet world, every young person is his/her own Chairman Mao, issuing orders and transforming the world.  Who needs the party committee secretary or the struggle committee director to issue orders?  At various comment sections, the "angry young men" (="shitty" young men) are exchanging gossip and forming their own virtual Gang of Four.  Who is going to be loyal to the ghastly-looking uncles and aunties in Beijing city?

That is a very interesting idea -- the Cultural Revolution would not have been feasible in the Internet era.  If true, then we are marching down an irreversible path.

I wish somebody would take the position of the typical Chinese internet user. If one is going to advocate a boycott, I would like the criteria to be the material improvement in the life of the typical Chinese internet user.  I think talk of boycotting Google is a bad idea. People in China will not appreciate that because these are esoteric issues for them.
 
There are a number of search engines and there are many different ways of searching. People want more choice. Don't tell them they are free by advocating a boycott.  I conducted a little test. I searched for mention of the circumstances under which a supplement called Bingdian (Freezing Point) was recently banned in China. The editor of this supplement had written a letter of complaint.  Any mention of this on the local Baidu search engine has disappeared. In fact, when you put a banned search term in, the engine shuts down. If you put in a term like June 4 [the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre] the result is "Not Found". And then you can't search again for 30 minutes. It's a very upsetting experience.  But with Google.cn there are different ways of finding things. You can try any number of subtle combinations. Google gives you more opportunities to triangulate.

There are all kinds of devious ways in which internet democracy can work. Better to have something than nothing.  People are missing the point if they set up the debate that Google is evil. In the end it's down to local laws. The real battle is for the Chinese to fight this law. 

[in translation]  Compared to the mainland, Hong Kong blogging is weaker.  Sidekick, who gets about 1,000 visitors a day, is said to be one of the most popular.  She was also invited to attend the Chinese Blog Conference in Shanghai last year.  "Hong Kong bloggers are quite diversified.  There are people who write about technology, and there were people who write short stories."  Sidekick claims: "Many people read me because I write about different things.  I present technology, I write about fashionable things and I comment on current affairs.  Everything.  Other people can easily reach my website through search engines."

Sidekick believes that Hong Kong blogs are weak because there are no standout bloggers such as Mu Zimei and Furong Jiejie and therefore cannot create a heat wave.  Secondly, Hong Kong did not have too many blog service providers previously until the recent appearance of Yahoo's yblog, Now.com's hompy and Sina.com's mysinablog.  This was fully two years behind the mainland.  Thirdly, Hong Kong people do not have great writing ability and they have too little time, so there are fewer serious bloggers.  "You see that movie critic 'Mike' (邁克) chose to set up a blog at blogcn.  So he may have seen that there are more readers over there.  This shows that there is no heat wave in the Hong Kong blogs."

In my opinion, none of these things should be a barrier.  Why do I say that?  It is the definition of the Internet -- it breaks down borders!  There is no difference between Hong Kong, mainland China or anywhere else anymore.  First, if you want to become Muzimei, Furong Jiejie or whoever, you can do it anywhere because it can't be that difficult, eh?  Secondly, who cares about where the blog service provider is located anyway?  Thirdly, it is not about writing skill or time on hand; it is about the will and desire to do so.  For example, I am convinced that a Hong Kong person can easily become the top Internet political commentator/blogger for Greater China.  Furthermore, this person will have some built-in advantages, for this is where borders do matter as he/she has open access to information and has no censorship.
 
Anyway, I now need another project for the rest of year 2006 ...

In January 2006, Kuomintang chairman Mr. Ma Ying-jeou gave a speech to encourage his Kuomintang Youth League members and told this joke: "I hope that the Kuomintang Youth League can produce a Hu Jintao some day."  I believe that this is the most ill-considered joke that he had made in his entire political career.

Via ChineseNewsNet, Ma Ying-jeou had to explain the next morning (note: Lung Yingtai had an open question as to whether she is influential -- this has just been answered).  He said that he was not praising the Communist Party.  He only wanted to emphasize that the KMT must also value the views of young people, or else they would be worse than even the Communist Party.  He implied no value judgment with respect to Hu Jintao.  He pointed out that he also mentioned Germany's former Chancellor Schroder at the time as well.
 
The reason that this story is being reported at ESWN has nothing to do with Ma Ying-jeou.  It has to do with the fact that when the question was raised, the KMT chairman felt compelled to respond the same morning that the essay appeared in a Taiwan newspaper, whereas the direct addressee of the open letter, Hu Jintao, is unlikely to ever acknowledge its existence.

二、一般人民應站在國家主人的立場，對各式各樣的政黨隨時保留選擇支持或拋棄的超然地位。所以政黨只有一時的支持者，而不必有永久的黨員。否則一般人民分別成為各個政黨的黨員時，各政黨就形同人民相互對抗的集團，而人民也失去了主人的超然地位。

[in translation]  2.  The common people should take the position of being the masters of the nation.  They should take a detached position and reserve the right to retain or reject any political party.  Therefore, political parties can only have temporary supporters, but not permanent party members.  Otherwise, when the common people become members of one political party or the other, the political parties become organizations through which the people oppose and fight each other, and then the people would have lost their detached position as the masters.

三、政黨依附國家而生存，所以政黨的目的應在促進國家的政治進步。政黨應認定其他政黨是促進國家進步的同工。所以對於他黨都應視為友黨，不應為了爭奪政治地位及權力而捨棄國家的利益，更不應互相仇視、敵對。  

[in translation]  3.  A political party depends on the nation for survival, and therefore the goal of the political party should be to promote the political progress of the nation.  A political party should recognize that the other political parties are their co-workers in promoting the progress of the nation.  Therefore, it should regard all other parties as friendly parties.  The parties should not give up the national interests in order to grab political position and power, and they should not be hostile and antagonistic to each other.

... 以近年來台灣的選舉情況來說，代表各政黨的候選人，大多數會夥同該黨之公職人員，舉辦所謂造勢大會，或刊登巨幅廣告號召自己的黨員及支持者，一起來批評痛罵，甚至於誣蔑其他政黨及其候選人，並無理性的政策辯論。所以每一次選舉，幾乎都讓台灣的族群更加分裂，階級更加對立，選後仍然互相仇視、惡鬥，使整個國家和社會陷入紛擾不安。

[in translation] ... In the recent elections in Taiwan, the candidates representing the various political parties worked together with the public officials of the party to hold huge rallies, or place huge advertisements to call together their party members and supporters in order to criticize, denounce and even defame other political parties and their candidates without bothering with any rational policy debates.  After each election, there is greater divisiveness between the social groups and greater class antagonism in Taiwan.  After the election is over, they continue to hate and fight with each other, causing the nation and society to fall into turmoil and instability.

Can Lin Yi-hsiung be dismissed as a nutcase?  Please refer to December 2005 Comment #059.  Nobody has suffered more personally.  One of his nicknames is The Saint.

  • Ordinary Iraqis bear brunt of war -- Mike says, "Jill was passionate about this story, one of the first she filed for us. For her, it was one of the most important to tell about the war in Iraq. And this particular piece led to an outpouring of financial contributions for Zeinab Yasseen and her family from Monitor readers. It was one of those pieces that made an immediate difference."
     
  • Old brutality among new Iraqi forces -- "Long before revelations of secret prisons in Iraq's Ministry of Interior, Jill was reporting on allegations of increasing brutality within some the country's security forces," says Mike. "It was her ability to find trusting sources that put her on the leading edge of this important story."
     
  • Sectarian strife tears at neighbors -- Mike says that "Jill is well aware that traveling around Iraq is dangerous for journalists. But what she often talks about is how dangerous Iraq has become for its ordinary citizens. Especially if they wander into the wrong neighborhood. Here she writes about how the growing sectarian divide in Iraq has led to neighborhoods segregated along religious lines."
     
  • What Sunni voters want -- "Before Iraq's Dec. 15 parliamentary election, Jill was embedded with the marines in the mostly Sunni Anbar province. On routine patrols through villages around Huseybah, she used her Arabic language skills to speak with people on the street about what they hoped to achieve in the upcoming election," according to Mike. "Unlike the vote for the interim parliament, this time Sunni Arabs were planning to come out in force to the polls. And in this story, Jill and her colleague Ilene Prusher revealed that while Sunni Arabs might be joining the political process, many of them were not turning away from supporting the antioccupation insurgency."

Memoirs of a Geisha, the hit film based on a best-selling book, has run into trouble in China, home to its leading actresses. Prompted by fears that it will further inflame already rampant anti-Japanese feeling, Chinese film censors have cancelled the planned release of the movie next month.  China's two most famous actresses, Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li, play the leading roles in the film, which was initially approved by the censors. But the state-run Film Bureau has changed its mind. Mao Yu, director of the bureau's propaganda and publishing section, believes Memoirs poses "complex" problems and is "too sensitive". ...

One blogger said: "She's sold her soul and betrayed her country. Hacking her to death would not be good enough." Other bloggers claimed that casting of Zhang as the geisha Sayuri is the equivalent of a Jewish actress playing a Nazi.  With Sino-Japanese relations at their lowest point in decades, the authorities are worried the film will revive lingering resentment over the Japanese treatment of Chinese women before and during the Second World War. Tens of thousands of women were raped by Japanese troops during the infamous Nanjing Massacre in 1937. Thousands more were among the estimated 200,000 Asians forced to work as "comfort women" in Japanese military brothels during the war.

So the Internet gets blamed again for inflaming passions?  Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, the movie Memoirs of a Geisha has opened to little fanfare.  There was much more interest in The Chronicles of Narnia (see Alison Lurie's review).

社會運動中人的陋習，人皆見之，敵我分明，立場重於一切，然而，置身其中，當知其難；這次批評星島，並非自然反應，起源卻是一位不甚參與遊行示威的本港著名blogger，有人憤怒，但主要聲援團體HKPA其實沒有時間理會，韓農雖覺老屈，但不太介懷，只是一眾參加開遊行的朋友，兼一群不知何處跑出來的人，深感憤怒． 

[in translation]  A bad habit of people involved in social movements is well known -- your position is everything and it is clear who the friends and enemies are.  If you are involved with this, you will know how hard it is.  But the criticism against Sing Tao was not a spontaneous reflex.  It began with a certain blogger who does not usually participate in demonstrations.  Some people got very angry, but the principal support group HKPA did not have the time and energy for it.  The Koreans felt aggrieved, but they did not mind much.  So it was up to the people who are regular demonstrators plus another bunch of people who came out of nowhere to express their anger.

So it is up to me to explain how I got this reputation of not participating in demonstrations.  I am of an age that would make me a lot older than the blogging generation out there.  In my youth, I have personally witnessed social movements such as the I Wor Kuen, Asian Americans For Equal Employment, the Diaoyutai defense, the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards, Vietnam war protests, etc.  With due respect, every movement that I have seen was eventually hijacked for other purposes.  Come to think of it, I have even personally hijacked some movement for completely different purposes.
 
Today, I will still go and demonstrate for a cause.  But I will be damned if I let someone else hijack my presence and use it for some other purpose.  What do I mean?  The following is a photo from the December 4, 2005 march in Hong Kong.  Take a close look at the banners.

While I may march for "People Power," I'll be damned if I am going to celebrate the 'fact' that 6 million Communist Party members have resigned because they heeded the call of a certain 'cult.'  
 
You can see a lot more examples at my own photos of the 2005 7/1 March.  The organizers said that that 21,000 persons marched to support universal suffrage and to condemn government-business collusion.  Meanwhile, I can count 2,000-3,000 South Asian domestic helpers for whom universal suffrage and government-business collusion cannot possibly be more remote from their minds (note: they will probably get a pay cut if universal suffrage were in place when the popular opinion of Hong Kong voters really mattered).  Also, how shall I reconcile that 21,000 persons marched for gay rights and 21,000 persons marched against homosexuality?  They can't be both true and the only truth is that 21,000 persons served as propaganda material.
 
Pardon me for being cynical -- these large demonstrations are exercises of mutual exploitations.  The organizers have a particular axe to grind, and other groups leeched themselves onto the cause even if they have no affinity for that stated cause but they wanted to showcase their own issues along the parade route.  I won't object to a carnival parade in which everybody celebrated their own individuality, but I do object to seeing the press releases about how everybody (and absolutely everybody) marched to a particular cause on that day.
 
So if they want to hold a candlelight vigil against Sing Tao for that particular article, I will be there.  But if someone wants to bring up government-business collusion, I'll leave.  If they want to hold a mass rally for universal suffrage, I refuse to be tallied as supporting the Nine Criticisms, or objecting to the use of Li Ka-Shing name for the Hong Kong University School of Medicine, or advocating the right of the Taiwanese people for self-determination.
 
This is not an unusual sentiment in Hong Kong.  In a sense, this is the big elephant in the house that nobody wants to talk about.  To see this point, you will have to reconcile how a majority of the people support universal suffrage according to public opinion polls but a much smaller proportion shows up for demonstrations.  You may think 100,000 demonstrators is a big number, but the public opinion polls suggest that the support level is more like three or four million.  Why won't the rest of the people come out?  I assert that they won't for the same reasons why I won't.
 
For another example, check out InMediaHK.  Here a demonstration by the Hong Kong Professional Teacher's Union is represented by this picture at Tai Kung Po with a banner of the DAB political party.  Was that the reason why the demonstrators went out there for?

Holding a photocopy of a news clipping dated January 5, a resident of Sanjiao township in Zhongshan jabbed his finger in the air.  "I want to ask [provincial party secretary] Zhang Dejiang what he really means by the 'three stern demands'? How could the police beat civilians who just asked for what they deserve?"  The news clipping was one of the front-page editorials published by Guangdong media last month hailing a speech made by Mr Zhang.   In the speech, he demanded provincial officials observe three rules when overseeing land requisitions, one of which states building cannot start until farmers have been paid full compensation.

Isn't this a superior strategy to: "We will not talk unless Zhang Dejiang is removed"?

Radically happy Apparently Hong Kong's radicals aren't radical enough for the real radicals. A Web site calling itself "Target: WTO - Derail, Dismantle, Destroy!" carries an open letter to the Hong Kong People's Alliance, accusing the HKPA of timidity and accusing them of siding with the police at the WTO confab. "How can the HKPA legitimate the police force, negotiate and follow all rules set out by the police and the HK government when they are protecting the most illegitimate institutions?"asks an activist named Amardeep. He also had concerns about the lack of direct action on the march. Tuesday's festivities, including the pepper spray, should have cheered Amardeep up.

In My Response to the Standard's Outrageous Representation, Amardeep responds:

First of all - I, Amardeep, am not a man; I am a woman. Clearly, this person from the Standard who wrote this article did not interview me.

Secondly, the author took one quote from my two- page open letter to justify that I accused HKPA of timidity by not being direct action enough. At no point in my letter did I view HKPA to be an organization of cowards.

Thirdly, I wrote the letter about a week before the MC6. Where did this author get the following idea of my feelings of the march that happened on Tuesday, Dec 13th: "He also had concerns about the lack of direct action on the march"? The author has made unqualified facts and feelings of people in the article to drive his media propaganda.

Fourthly - NO! Pepper Spray did NOT cheer me up! It did anything but cheer me up. In fact on Friday, December 15, 2005, I was with the women's march helping deliver Pepper Pig Stomach Soup for WTO's cold-blooded exploitations. Maybe I should reiterate our (women's) statements, "Pepper, is for soup, not for abuse." I assert woman's right to food soveriengty. 

"Microsoft, Yahoo and others are helping to institutionalize and legitimize the integration of censorship into the global IT business model,'' said Rebecca MacKinnon, a former Beijing bureau chief for CNN now specializing in Web censorship.

It's all futile, though. China will find it harder and harder to police fast-changing technologies and fast-learning bloggers. All Chinese consumers may remember years from now is how the biggest names in technology once helped keep them down. Along with a Chinese firewall, they may be creating barriers between themselves and future users.

I'd like to see the country's consumers boycott Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and others. It's just not clear that the message would reach many in China. 

Okay, let's supposed that the Chinese consumers heed William Pesek's call and boycott Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and others.  They don't have to use MSN Spaces because they know that they always have Chinese blog service providers such as blogcn and bokee.  Here is an interview with Hu Zhiguang, founder and chairman of blogcn (Business Week):

Q: What do you think is the biggest difference between the blogosphere in the U.S. and in China?
A: The difference between China and the U.S. is quite large. The U.S. has many famous bloggers, and they have a big influence. In China, because of the political environment problem, it's not possible to have that sort of thing.  So [Chinese blogs are] more lifestyle- and entertainment-oriented. But Chinese bloggers are more willing to express themselves than American bloggers. Because elsewhere in America there's more freedom, so the methods of expression are more [varied].

Q: But, as you say, the political environment in China means there's a lot that people can't express in their blogs.
A: Sometimes there are people who write about Taiwanese independence and the Falun Gong.

Q: And what happens when they try to do that?
A: We set up keywords for our programs, like "Falun Gong," and when you type in those keywords, you cannot post them. It just shows up as stars. Everybody has that.

Q: People can avoid using those words, though.
A: The problem exists, but it's not a big one. We can immediately fix it, and it's not a problem. Maybe there are some words that aren't in the keywords, but if they're published, they don't fit the content. Then the Internet police will call us, and we will delete it within 24 hours. If it lasts on the site too long, then maybe it will make some trouble. Maybe I will have to go to the police station.

Q: How often have you had to do that?
A: That has never happened. The phone calls seldom happen - it's only four or five times in two years. We have a specialist who takes care of this. These people [who post the forbidden things] are not real bloggers. They know it will be deleted.

So now do you think freedom and democracy will arrive as a result of Chinese consumers boycotting Yahoo/Google/Microsoft and using blogcn instead?

I ask once again: for the next person who wishes to comment or make proposals on this subject, please explain how the Chinese Internet users will be substantively better off as a result of your recommendations.
 
Meanwhile, for Americans, if MSN, Yahoo and Google are so evil, why don't you boycott them?  That is the question that the Chinese want to know.  Are you standing in solidarity with the Chinese or not?

Two journalists in eastern China have been jailed for ten and six years for publishing an unauthorised magazine that exposed local land disputes. Court officials in Zhejiang province said the men were also charged with illegal business operations and fraud. The Beijing Times says the magazine, "New China Youth", was registered in Hong Kong in 2002 but this had no validity on the mainland. Last month, a Xinhua news agency report said the journalists had threatened the local government that they would publish stories if the peasants' demands were not met. 

Hmmm?  What do you think?  Is this the usual big bad China story?  For the details about what was happening with New China Youth, please see the previous post: How To Get Rich As A Reporter In China.  Will Reporters Without Borders fight for the two journalists?

... The police used Cantonese to tell us to stop outside this room, leave all our stuff on the outside and then go in to be searched.  I said, "Undo my handcuffs!" because I couldn't remove my stuff otherwise.  The policeman looked at me in surprise and it was clear that he was unprepared for this.  So he asked another police officer to get some tool, and this other person brought back a tiny craft knife with a blade about 0.5 cm long.  Then he tried to slash and drag at the plastic cuff, and even wanted me to get out of my own cuffs by myself.  Then it was the turn of the mainlander Wen who yelled: "Be careful about my clothing!  They are brand name products!"  Then those two had a quarrel conducted in Cantonese, which was basically about how the Hong Kong police arrested people for no reason.  While they were quarreling, I stuffed everything on me -- headband, slogans, passport, digital camera -- into my bookbag.

Bang! The cell door was slammed shut.  The mainlander asked the police to give him a blanket.  "Later," said the policeman.  After a while, Wen's blanket came.  We introduced ourselves to each other.  The American said: "I am American.  My name is Sascha.  I work as a reporter in mainland China and I came here by myself.  I did not apply for a reporter's pass."  The Japanese said: "I am Yukihiro.  I work for a Japanese labor website."  The mainlander Wen said, "I am a tourist.  Look at me.  I don't even have my jacket here, beacuse I let my Hong Kong friends take it.  I told them to leave first, because I thought that I could get out immediately.  I didn't imagine that Hong Kong would be even more Chinese than China!"

... During the day, Wen spoke with the police in Cantonese and found out that they said that we could leave soon because the females have been released already.  Wen Zhiming translated the conversation into putonghua (Sascha was very good in Chinese), and then I translated it into English for Yukihiro.

... I chatted with Yukihiro about media and websites, and then I chatted with Wen about "one country, two systems" and the problems of going across borders.

... At around 7pm at our cell, Wen was asked by the police: "Are you the one from China?  Get up and come out!"  We embraced with Wen one after another and left the contact information.  He said, "Please come and look me up in Guangdong!"  But Wen would be walking out of this detention cell only to be charged in court.

I do not know for sure what happened with Wen.  The speculation was that he was selected for prosecution because he was tall and tanned like a farmer.  As a member of the fourteen, there was no specific evidence against Wen initially.  Over the next three weeks, it is known that the none of the original 80 listed police witnesses identified Wen (nor any of the other 13 suspects).  None of the additional police witnesses called in for the 'confrontation' line-up (that is, each witness got to walk up and stare at the 14 suspects in close) picked out Wen.  Therefore, Wen was released.
 
Was this another triumph of the famous rule of law in Hong Kong?  Well, the rule of law is not just about whether Wen was freed eventually, but also about why he was arrested and charged in the first instance.  Did the Hong Kong police make an honest mistake, or did they charge these fourteen people out of political expediency?  You should never expect to get a straight answer even if it seems quite obvious by now.  (Postscript: I expect that the response (if any) is that the police had the evidence but they cannot tell us at this time to protect the privacy of the individuals)

How many bloggers are there in Hong Kong?  There are no accurate statistics, because Hong Kong blogs are hosted by a variety of BSP's around the world.  But it is undeniable that the use of blogs is limited in Hong Kong, the number of bloggers is relatively small and the circle of bloggers is not wide.  On both sides of the straits and in the world Chinese community, Hong Kong is a leader in termsof freedom of speech and adoption of new technology, but its people have less desire and quality to express with words.  The young people of Hong Kong particularly have been immersed extensively in audio-visual media and colloquial culture.  Therefore they are less interested and skilled in verbal expression, whereas blogs are primarily verbal in nature.  Furthermore, the blogger spirit is about innovation, whereas Hong Kong students are used to the force-fed-duck type of education system and tend to conform.  Thus, blogging in Hong Kong remains to be developed.

There is no point in arguing with this kind of essay.  Why bother?  As the Super Girl theme goes -- if you want to blog, just blog.

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; 
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man 
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; 
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. 
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan 
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan, 
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Alas, I am aged and tired.  So when I read the interview How China Controls the Internet of Nicholas Bequelin, the China research director for Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, by Business Week's Bruce Einhorn, I can do no more.  Somehow, these people dwell in a different China than the one that I am in.  (Hint: Go to Technorati, type in some sensitive keywords and see what is on the MSN Spaces blogs).  Anyway, I am confident that there are young and abled bodies out there who can undertake the job of addressing this fisking of this interview properly ... go for it!

[in translation]  At court, the Gang of Four and more than a dozen of their colleagues stood in a row.  But only Yao Wenyuan carried a fountain pen in his pocket, which showed why he was Mao Zedong's writer.  He began to keep a diary at age 15, and continued to write every day through the Cultural Revolution and in prison.  His diary is not just about daily trivia, but it carried his and other people's viewpoints.  In prison, he showed that he seemed to be honestly reforming himself and he listened to the lectures from the prison administrators.  This was different from the rowdiness of Jiang Qing or