March 2008 Atlantic Monthly carries this pretty accessible write-up on current and coming Summer Olympics-time Chinese stone^H^H^H^H^H^Hfirewalling efforts:

"[...] All the technology employed by the Golden Shield, all the marvelous mirrors that help build the Great Firewall—these and other modern achievements matter mainly for an old-fashioned and pre-technological reason. By making the search for external information a nuisance, they drive Chinese people back to an environment in which familiar tools of social control come into play. [...]"

the rest at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200803/chinese-firewall

Very interesting and detailed article. Again, this won't be the first olympics abused as an image cleaning effort detached from actual local reality.

Why do Chinese authorities do all this censorship? Would Chinese people rebel otherwise, knowing about the evils of the Communist party? I'm not sure the Chinese would another bloody revolution, as they had so many blood in the last century.

> The mirroring routers were first designed and supplied to
> the Chinese authorities by the U.S. tech firm Cisco, which
> is why Cisco took such heat from human-rights organizations.
> Cisco has always denied that it tailored its equipment to
> the authorities’ surveillance needs, and said it merely sold
> them what it would sell anyone else. The issue is now moot,
> since similar routers are made by companies around the world

Disagree – this does not make the issue moot. Knowing the past helps understand and sometimes change the future, or in this case Cisco. (Well, if the public cares about an issue at least.)

> For two months in 2002, Google’s Chinese site, Google.cn,
> got a different kind of bad-address treatment, which
> shunted users to its main competitor, the dominant Chinese
> search engine, Baidu.

"Google.cn", is that correct for 2002?

Philipp: "Why do Chinese authorities do all this censorship?"

Short answer: "because they can."
There may be plenty of longer, more exquisite explanations loitering nearby, but in the end they all come down to a single realisation: the cultural reference frameworks —indeed the very definitions of "evenhandedness," "apropriatedness," and "rationality"— of Chinese powers that be, and our Western/ European ditto (as exemplified by your very self), simply don't mesh. Democratic traditions, and their moral offshots are, sadly, primarily a West-European concept, and there is no denying that attempting to judge other cultures' or societies' progress using SOLELY our own, Western metrics, is bound to result in many a true negative (and not a few false positives). We may abhor others' "undemocratic" practices all we want, but in the end we need to ask yourselves by what right, other than religiously-flavoured righteous indignation, are we usurping ourselves the rôle of judging of "not-ourselves." And in China's case – aren't their cultural traditions far older than our, European own?

[Just a few philisoph-ick™ args() to seed("a discussion"); don't misjudge them for any defence of Chinese Internetty-practices].

The West made the transition to a more democratic basis for society gradually, when today's mass media didn't exist and the minority couldn't use modern weaponry to suppress a majority (compare a mob against swordsmen or cavalry vs a mob against machine guns and tanks). You couldn't do a gradual change now; pretty much any liberalisation would open the floodgates, and so you polarise the two ideologies.

At least, that's my take. If anyone has an idea of how to do a step-by-step transition from censorship and suppression to freedom of speech and liberation without bringing the whole thing crashing down, let us know :)

Ianf, I don't think of it as an issue of "others" – I dislike Chinese censorship as much as I dislike German censorship or US censorship or any other kind of censorship (I'm German). You may think that dislike of censorship itself is the thing that's rooted in German culture but I'm afraid that's not so – we have some ridiculous anti-free speech laws here* and when you talk to even intelligent people here, they will often find arguments why "our" censorship is right, and "their" censorship is wrong, and ways to explain why "our" censorship is in fact not even censorship (the logic is really twisted, but there's a subtle part in the German constitution differentiating between "pre" and "post" [publication] censorship, arguing the latter is no real censorship). Not to mention all the implicit censorship in Western society. Noam Chomsky's books have a lot of worthwhile points of view on this.

But, it's a good point of discussion you're rasing. Because if some people make it out an issue of "others" only, then the whole globe will end up pointing fingers and no local change would happen. Also, it takes a lot more braveness to pinpoint to bad local conditions because you will face a lot of local social pressure. Some people will say "2 + 2 = 5" if required by peers. (We did some interesting experiments in school along these lines, if anyone's interested...)

*Example? A t-shirt maker distributed anti-neo Nazi material. By the time, however, printing a swastika was illegal even in the context of striking through the swastika or showing it being trashed. IIRC, police raided the factory and the guy distributing these shirts wasn't allowed to continue his business. He then went to court, and won... but many other times censorship is just applied without any successful countering.
Compared to China, I see it as an important but only theoretical issue though (my life or freedom is not threatened here due to reporting). In China, for many people it's a much more practical issue (your life or freedom may actually be threatened if you report against the government), and it would become one for you too (if you're a Westerner) if you wanted to live in China (though perhaps to a lesser extent – still, your internet connection would be severaly restricted). [And it's not a mere "Western perspective" problem with China, as many Chinese also would like to not be threatened when they report or follow their political beliefs or religions.] Nevertheless, I do think you need to oppose even "mere theoretical" issues like those in Germany, as they can lead to set examples for other countries to follow – even Eric Schmidt cited Germany as one of the local markets doing censorship [ e.g. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=google.de+censorship+-china+site%3Ablogoscoped.com&btnG=Search] when defending China. It's the broken window phenomenon ... if one country is allowed to do it, the barrier is lowered for other countries (and the technologies, as already implemented once, are then ready as well).

Douglas' remark of historical context, and the unforgiving march of ever more deadly progress, lies very close to the core of it (and Ted Kaczynski[*] had a few lucid thoughts to say about it, too, in between spells of homicidal madness). Faced with (self-assigned, yes, but...) task of governing a nation of 1.2 billion largely uneducated, unruly people with ingrained feodal traditions, now suddenly teleported to XXIst century, China's leaders may actually be going the only viable route of s l o w i n g d o w n that progress as much as they can. All so they (and by implication we all) won't be ending up in more of a "Blade Runner-y" reality, than Shanghai, and Hongkong already show signs of.... (which movie, may I remind you, was set in Los Angeles A.D. 2019 – mere 11 years away).

That is why I tried to argue the issues in neutrally polemical terms. It may be a natural consequence for the industrious "West" – and what is "West" depends on one's GPS coordinates ;-)) – to wish equal democratic, uncensored freedoms upon all, as a kind of universal if-not-panaceum, then a least common denominator for idealized government-by-consensus. Except that for most countries/ people of the world these are far from self-evident values. Nor were they such for now-enlightened "us" over much of our existence. Blessed as we are with the twin advantages of civilization – potable water on tap, and indoor canalisation ("the inflow and outflow of H2O"), we tend to discount the long/dark feodal times when it was us, who were the unwashed, ignorant serfs of the mighty, and the allegedly-divine.

[ As for swastikas – why, seemingly ordinary people cannot get enough of them, never could. Call it morbid fascination (of) ;-))

http://bp2.blogger.com/_-ehFO_LLCwk/RyBrwSofVlI/AAAAAAAABdQ/Gh-HKCtiXWY/s400/golfing.jpg
see 1st para of for background: http://newsfromnowhere1948.blogspot.com/2007/10/judging-book-by-its-cover.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=golfing.for.cats]

[*] brother of Lech, Jaroslaw and Andrey(?)

You argue that China's leaders want to slow down the progress, but is that really what we're seeing? I'm seeing much more slowing down of progress here in Germany, for instance, where you are (in general) not allowed to work on Sundays or (in general) not allowed to quickly demolish an old house and build a new bigger one instead of it (you will have to go through formalities and there are many considerations, like landmark conservation, which may get in your way) and (in general) not allowed to open your shop at night, or work on the street because your business requires it, or sell unlicesned music and movies because people
ask for it, etc. – all things common in China's bigger cities. In many ways you could argue China's capitalism is flowing much more freely than in Europe (to the detriment of ecology, which may backfire on China – in that regards, China is by far not alone, of course; I just need to look outside to see e.g. cars driving night and day with usually 1.2 or whatever persons sitting in 5 person cars, instead of using public transport).

So rather, in many ways it seems China opted for fast commercial and technical progress but is just trying to halt the process in information sharing (perhaps due to being scared to find people at large see the fundament the Communist party is standing on, which is connected to many of Mao's wrongdoings?). But this, fostering technological progress while slowing down the information sharing means, is in itself is a contradiction; how are Chinese workers supposed to progress and keep up with world markets if they are not allowed to freely research and communicate online?

"how are Chinese workers supposed to progress and keep up with world markets if they are not allowed to freely research and communicate online?"

Then ask yourself again, how are chinese workers getting ahead of most developed countries without having access to free research and communication ??

China's GDP is growing and the US is in debt to the tune of $128 Trillion to China.. How did that happen eh ??

Whats "censorship" in china is different to what the world thinks it is. In fact from my discussions with Peeps inside China, they really don't care about the censorship and all that fun stuff. What they care about is that they have more $$$ to spend and have a better lifestyle.

Pd, I should probably add, "progess *in the long run*" – right now they have a lot of cheap labor I suppose (compared to other markets in the world) but won't that level itself out once more people get those $$$ you mention?

> Whats "censorship" in china is different to what the world
> thinks it is. In fact from my discussions with Peeps inside
> China, they really don't care about the censorship and all
> that fun stuff.

I've heard different opinions from (individual, non-representative!) Chinese, including those that defend and those that attack their own government, but let's not forget there may be an instinctive opposing to outside criticism (because one is proud of one's country and culture, rather keeping criticism to be debated internally). Though can you share more details about the content of the conversations you had? It would be ineresting.

The censorship have two major effects different from the one in Germany:
1. 95% success rate of blocking is well enough, because this will make people be in fear. Imposing terror and make people in fear is the way to establish dominant by any dictatorship. German should still remember how Nazi Germany silenced those citizens who disliked Nazi.
2. Remind everyone that who is in charge.

Today Germany does have censorship is more serious than other European countries. However, does such censorship make you be in fear? Do a democratic elected government needs censorship to establish authority?

I agree with your points Andy.

> does such censorship make you be in fear?

No. Like I tried to say, for me in Germany it's more of a theoretical censorship here than a practical one, the kind that "merely" provides arguments (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12283735/) for the kind of censorship that actually threatens daily life and freedom for many.

I'm not sure surface comparisons of censorship in Germany and China will yield any viable insights. This is far too important an issue to be debated flippantly (no offence, but....). Given China's size, and global economic impact in years to come, together with the fact that, along with the other super-sized, also nuclear, state --India, that is usually billed "world's biggest democracy" (which it isn't, not in the European sense) – with which China is none too friendly, the fact that they both account for well over 40% of all human subjects, I'd rather we tried to better understand the underlying cultural/ historical paradigms that govern these two.

Here's somewhat heavy to digest, yet interesting article in the above vein, deep-backgrounder kind of story.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: China is full of intellectual fervor, Internet censorship or no censorship. We better learn to listen to what their thinkers may utter aloud.

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/printarticle.php?id=10078

Prospect Magazine Issue 144 , March 2008

China's new intelligentsia

by Mark Leonard

Despite the global interest in the rise of China, no one is paying much attention to its ideas and who produces them. Yet China has a surprisingly lively intellectual class whose ideas may prove a serious challenge to western liberal hegemony

Mark Leonard is the executive director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. [...]

"-India, that is usually billed "world's biggest democracy" (which it isn't, not in the European sense)"

What does that mean -(not in the European sense)? could you elaborate ?

to the best of my knowledge, India is the worlds largest democracy- even if you hack the EU's together, the total population of India out numbers the EU /European popluation.

<<I'm not sure surface comparisons of censorship in Germany and China will yield any viable insights.>>

The point is exactly that such comparisons are *already* used by Google in defending their China censorship... see the article I pointed to and scroll down to where Eric Schmidt talks about Germany.

But, your argument seems to be along the lines of human rights are culture-dependent. Eric Schmidt too used this argument in the article above. Another argument is along the lines of there are global human rights which every country should accept, e.g. Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and so on.

If you think I'm discussing this flippantly, you are of course free to that opinion. Here's an interesting, more in-depth book in regards to the cultural legacy – if you live in a place where you are allowed to buy this book and read it:
http://www.amazon.com/Mao-Story-Jung-Chang/dp/0679746323/