China's Internet Censorship: more hemmorroid than horror

Recently I wrote with contempt of this claim that "China remains brutally authoritarian," which is partially buttressed by misconceptions Americans harbor about Chinese internet censorship.

Social media blogger, Shel Israel, recently made his first visit to China. And all it took was a brief visit for him to get a very accurate view on the realities of Chinese censorship and its role in the lives of actual Chinese:

Censorship in China "is just about like what happens when you work for a company in the US. There are certain things you simply cannot say." When Robert and I collaborated on Naked Conversations, he was working at Microsoft. When I emailed him there, I had to write "N*ked Conversations to get through the corporate spam/porn filters." The point is that we both knew what we were talking about and it was easy to work around the problem.

The person who believes China is a threat to the United States might have a hard time admitting that the voices of Americans are routinely censored at home. With full understanding granted to the difference between government and employment restrictions, it still stands that the lives of most Americans are impacted more greatly by the censors at their jobs than they would be impacted if the government was suddenly as authoritarian. How frequently does the average American protest? Have you ever voiced your dissent in a public manor? Held a sign in front of a courthouse? Filed a legal suit against your government? How much does the average American really make use of all the freedom she is afforded?

Then consider the controls on your expression at work. Employees have little problem swallowing their pride in the face of dictates from higher-ups, they perceive no violation of human rights when they are made to smile and nod at their bosses’ terrible ideas, and not a single sticker is stuck to the bumper of a car, in a foreign country, calling for the downfall of Bed, Bath, and Beyond because of their cultural genocide. Why not?

I think we’re more oppressed than we realize because of how we frame the issue. Our historical identity, one transmitted to us in mandatory education, is a nation of rebels united against tyranny and the promotion of individual rights. No k-12 student is ever asked to conceive of the term “freedom” in anything but the terms of US government; despite it having a much broader philosophical value, including one that applies to our work lives. As an unfortunate result it is outside our purview to see how Chinese citizens are no more oppressed than we are in daily life, because the Chinese government fails our constitutional standard, which is the only one that applies to our concept of freedom.

In China, in rare cases, where a blogger persisted in testing the government's will, there have been imprisonments. But such reaction is not an everyday occurrence and social media people do not live in constant fear of their doors being kicked down in the night. It just doesn't happen that way.

This is the point I tried to demonstrate with my April fools prank, where two thirds of Americans believed I was actually being deported from China for something I wrote on this blog. Exciting though it would it be, it just doesn’t happen that way.

In fact, for a small minority of bloggers, there is some status in pushing the envelope. I talked with two bloggers who boasted about how many times they had been blocked. One told me it would be "cool" if he actually got arrested.

Sounds unmistakably like the sentiments of troublemaking Americans school children. And if the way a Chinese person feels about internet censorship the same way American children feel about schools, American schools must brutally authoritarian threats to the globe. That, or internet censorship in China is a benign obstacle. Take your pick.

I concur with Israel, "censorship can be a major hemorrhoid to the China tech community, but it is not the Orwellian horror that so many Westerners seem to think it is."

I'm not defending penis eating, but Chinese food is delicious

I have been following the Bizcult blog since I found out Kyle Long was writing for it around December 2007. I never disagreed too strongly with the opinions it expressed because I don’t run a business in China. Moreover, my knowledge of Chinese culture is the flawed product of Western academic institutions mashed with experience from living in Beijing...as a product of Western institutions. But this post is about something I can disagree confidently about. Chinese food is delicious. It's better than American food. And although there were many aspects of American food I missed in Beijing, after returning I say with confidence the preponderance of great food lies in China.

Matt at Bizcult offers his translations of Mr. Paul, a Westerner writing about the many ways Chinese food is superlative:

Mr. Paul suggests there is “endless variety,” as if every animal body part made edible were a good thing. He says he has “sampled as much as possible.” Translation: he really did try to eat it, up until the point he knew he would gag if he took a bite of the penis meat.

I'm not here to defend penis eating. Nary a single time was a privileged enough to partake in such an expensive luxury, not even when dining with Chinese Communist Party officials in Yuncheng. But the following "translation" is far-and-away wrong, and I cannot fathom how a fellow Beijinger writes these things.

Though the Thai and Indian foods in America are pretty good versions of the real thing, the Chinese cuisine is most often an abomination,” Mr. Paul writes. Translation: Thai and Indian foods are pretty good versions of the real thing because they’re naturally tasty to Westerners. Chinese cuisine is most often an abomination to the Western palette, and must be altered drastically.

My views, in short:
Americanized Chinese food is delicious, though a sodium hazard.
Beijing Chinese food is delicious, though a sanitation hazard.
American food is sometimes good, though its goodness is hazardously tied to its saturated fat content.

Readjusting back to an American diet took much longer than adjusting to a Chinese one when I lived in Beijing. Sure, there are flavors in Chinese food that make you question the entire country, like tripe, but those are rare, and the majority of what you eat is very similar to the flavors you find in the United States. Breads, meats, sweet things...the specifics change, like your meat has bones all over, and yes, there is probably glass somewhere in one of your dishes, but all and all it's very delicious food.

The solution for tastes which your “Western palette” (whatever that is) rejects? Just don't order them. Instead of thousand year old eggs order orange chicken instead, it's on the same menu. And, since Chinese custom has multiple people sharing dishes over their individual bowls of rice, you can pick whatever you like the most and leave what you don't like for someone else.

Contrast that to American custom where you frequently order an entree which consists of a whole lot of some vegetable, a whole lot of some starch, and a huge hunk of meat. This hoggish approach is no better demonstrated than the American solution to vegetabls: salad, plate full of vegetables, often laden with a bunch of saturated fats. This unintegrated way of eating is boring and probably poses much more of a health problem than unsanitary Chinese kitchens. It is unlikely the Chinese government publishes any statistics on the number of people taken ill from food poisoning each year, but I'd wager it has a smaller financial cost than the clinical obesity of Americans.

Chinese cuisine integrates different food groups into a single dish, which offers a more interesting variety and means you can eat lots of vegetables in rich and tasty sauces without a ranch dressing fat infusion. It makes nutrition much more of a no-brainer and accounts for the lower levels of obesity experienced in East Asian countries relative to North American and Europe.

The only thing that I desperately missed in Beijing was tex-mex. Or more accurately, anything with cheese or tomato sauce on it. Now that I'm back, I eat a quesadilla with salsa everyday, preparing for the eventual return to Beijing where the only cheese I get to eat is on pizza at the Kro's Nest.

Is China a Threat to the U.S.?

With more than two billion residents, the world’s most spoken language and a booming economy, China is undoubtedly a rising global superpower. Suddenly America is faced with the prospect of a country whose financial and military power could soon rival its own, prompting many to wonder if China is a friend or foe. Is China really a red flag for the U.S.? -source-

Normally I'd see this headline-grabbing question as beneath consideration for anyone but the National Security Agency, but since it has come up in more than one casual conversation I realize it holds some importance even among young Americans who missed most of the Cold War. The Tiananmen Square protests probably have a large part to do with that. In any case, it's a worthwhile thought exercise.

Is China a Threat to the U.S.?
Short answer: Nah.
Long answer: If I weren't in the midst of writing a research paper about PRC and US motives for rapprochement in 1972 I would be more than happy to plunge into this issue. But for now the following critique of one expert's answer will have to suffice.

"China remains brutally authoritarian."
The vast majority of Chinese cities live their lives without ever having a bag thrown over their heads and beaten in a government compound. That dissidents are threatened and arrested from time to time is indeed a difference between here and there, however, the vast majority of Chinese will never even come close to that. There are places in the world where the authorities really are brutal and it devalues the term to claim China qualifies. It takes a lot of effort to threaten the Party, and until you do they aren't likely to bother you.

"China's government functions absent the protections of the rule of law."
Sometimes. It's changing.

China's Courts, Tenth "Best" Out of Twelve.

Rule Of China Law And GDP. Was It The Chicken Or The Egg?

China Sex, Prostitutes, Rule of Law, Lines of Power, Unintended Consequences and Bull Connor: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words. Redux

China Rule Of Law Rising?

The point here isn’t that the commentator is wrong, it’s that he thinks this statement is somehow an indictment of the Party and indicative of why China is a threat. And that demonstrates his lack of expertise, because the lack of rule of law is just one more facet of life in China which matters to Westerners but most Chinese are generally satisfied dealing with. Like pollution. A comparable fact of life in the United States is the democratic enforcement of speech codes which we call “political correctness.” Most Chinese find it a tremendous nuisance for them and might wonder how Americans can live their day to day lives with such oppression. We of course, barely notice. Imagine if Chinese newspapers frequently wrote about how oppressed Americans were by political correctness; we’d be angered or think “they just don’t understand.” Well that’s exactly what’s happening here; this expert American is claiming that, somehow, China's underdeveloped rule of law means the government is running roughshod over the people.

I’d say that rule of law is one aspect of enfranchisement the Chinese people have not yet fully achieved. But brutal authoritarian state it does not make.

“Thus as long as China willingly violates the basic rights of its own people, it can never be trusted to respect the rights of other nations”
This is bullshit. More rights have been violated and more violence has been done to people of the world in the name of American freedom, democracy, and capitalism than will be committed by China in the name of being brutally oppressive motherfuckers. Whether they pay homage to inalienable human rights at the start of every speech or not, the Chinese Communist Party is generally pragmatic and its outlook long-term--since it doesn’t get unelected every 8 years. The Chinese people are generally without idealistic zeal; though even if they were they can't swing the state apparatus into beastmode like Americans can.

If you want to talk about threats, the righteous and freedom-loving goodwill of the American people is a much greater threat to China than Chinese are to Americans. I would trust Chinese to respect the rights of other nations sooner than Americans because Chinese foreign policy doesn’t let their morality interfere with national sovereignty (at least, not since they asserted their own national sovereignty over Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, and others 50 years ago). Or more accurately, national soverignity is an issue of morality for China. The same can not be said about American foreign policy.

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Tonight is the first time I've seen it, but the China debate on opposingviews.com doesn't seem particularly researched or thoughtful. For the reader trying to ascertain the relative China threat I suggest starting with the basics before leaping out into predicting the motives and worldview of the CCP.

1. A Long Wait at the Gate to Greatness
2. A Weak China?
Links courtesy of the fantastic chinalawblog.com

Experience the censored Chinese internet at home!

I don't know their motives, but I know that the Firefox plugin developed by Aram Bartholl, Evan Roth, and Tobias Leingruber, is pretty sweet. It allows internet surfers anywhere in the world to surf through a Chinese proxy, therefore experiencing all the same disconnections as someone living in China. It's a wonderful demonstration which I hope will raise awareness among the West about the actual conditions in China. That and the following two articles.

They each deserve posts of their own, but I supply them here as background reading for someone who actually wants to know about internet censorship in China, rather than having a dismissive and falsely sympathetic attitude. Few people really believed me that you can Google image search for "Tiananmen Square tank man" and you will get tons of results. They are thumbnails and you can't get to the websites hosting them, but the police don't kick down your door days afterward to interrogate you.

How does the Great Firewall actually work?
This article describes the technical setup of it, as well as offers some surprising insights:

Think again of the real importance of the Great Firewall. Does the Chinese government really care if a citizen can look up the Tiananmen Square entry on Wikipedia? Of course not. Anyone who wants that information will get it—by using a proxy server or VPN, by e-mailing to a friend overseas, even by looking at the surprisingly broad array of foreign magazines that arrive, uncensored, in Chinese public libraries.

Absolutely true. You can get to anything through a proxy, it's just a slow pain in the ass. Like rush hour traffic.

Many Americans assume that China's internet users are unhappy about their government's control of the internet, but this survey finds most Chinese say they approve of internet regulation, especially by the government.

At the risk of seeiming like an apologist for annoying policies, I'll just point out that big bad China isn't the only country which routinely and categorically censors the internet for it's citizens--though it be the only one any Americans could name.
Perhaps Turkey should just ban the entire Internet
Pakistan joins the axis of No Tube
Russia Looking To Ban Goth And Emo Music And Websites

Presidential Policy: If you're right on China, you're wrong on something else.

There appears to be a loose correlation between good China policy and being a bad president.

The most forward thinking policy of all was implemented by Nixon, the guy who tapped the phones of the opposition and even had his cronies burglarize the Democratic National Convention office in order to win reelection. Nixon was the first president to visit modern China. He broke through a policy of rapprochement, an easing of hostilities and growth of political, economic, and cultural ties, which was continued though his lame successors, Ford, Carter, and Regan.

Then after the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989 the US imposed economic sanctions and moral censure which precluded a warm relationship through the prosperous Clinton years.

Recently George W. Bush’s policy toward China has returned to rapprochement which among most other 911 foreign policy, is surprisingly enlightened. He even went to the Olympics; a simple gesture which meant a lot to the Chinese. The United States and China are closer today than any time since 1949, which is good for the global economy, good for Chinese, good for Americans, and anyone who fears the prospects of a third World War. Coming in around 25 percent, with the second lowest approval rating since Gallup, W. Bush is leaving the office to a new candidate in January.

What’s Obama’s view of China? “…China is rising, and it’s not going away. They’re neither our enemy nor our friend. They’re competitors. But we have to make sure that we have enough military-to-military contact and forge enough of a relationship with them that we can stabilize the region.” Low hopes for the Sino-American relationship; Obama will make a great president.

John McCain on the other hand, the hawkish president who is more likely to continue a heavy-handed American foreign policy around the world, said explicitly in the debates he does not think we should think of China as our competitor. A wise view. What a terrible president he'll make.

Beijing Ethnic Minorities Park

Originally this was attached to this post. It has been slightly edited to stand alone.

Chinese views of skin colors are fascinating and diverse. For examples, girls buy skin whitening lotion and rock umbrellas on sunny days to avoid tans (and wrinkles). Central to Chinese understandings of ethnicity are the famous 56 which supposedly make up China's ethnic fabric. The majority, Han, make up 91% of the population and live along the Eastern seaboard and fertile provinces inland. The other 9% are 55 minorities which are supposedly all Chinese and part of the colorful harmonious nation China purports to be. These ethnicities were categorized in the 1950’s by Han scientists using four Stalinist criteria: economic life, language, geographic location, and culture. Despite severe overlap and a complete lack of distinction in some areas, 56 ethnicities were determined. No more. No less. So today we have Tibetians who don’t want to be Chinese, Manchu who completely indistinguishable from the Han by the four criteria yet still receive five extra points on their college admissions scores (similar to our Affirmative Action statutes), Hui who are just Han Muslims, and yet no Jewish ethnicity though there are many in China. The system has many noteworthy faults, but questioning it is futile because the Chinese Communist Party has spoken. This is how it has been since 1960, this is how it is now, and how it will be in the future. No new groups are being added, and if makes Americans mad they are forever foreigners even though there is a Korean ethnicity, then tough beans. Today, these ethnic divisions fantasy or not, are as good as real. They have been etched in stone.



Each ethnicity has its own cute logo, ostensibly designed by a Han party member. Here you can see the Hui icon on the left. Of course it’s nothing more than a big mosque since there’s nothing else which could uniquely identify them. Then some other Muslim ethnicity also has the crescent but a bird as well. Each minority also has a picture which gets used whenever the government publishes concerning the famous 56, like the map I have with the fancy minorities all around the border. Only 3 of the 55 are represented by males; instead they are mostly women in colorful bright ethnic costumes. In fact ,the feminization of the minorities is part of a larger discourse which aims to construct the Han as the center of China’s modern progress--humorless, asexual, suit wearers--while treating the minorities as the other which is more pastoral, quaint, primitive; and thus more free sexually, emotionally, and perhaps creatively too. It’s all pretty fascinating.

If you can imagine the US proudly proclaiming it’s 32 (or some other arbitrary number) ethnic minorities, you can probably understand China’s minority situation. We’d have African tribals with orange and red traditional garb, speaking click languages while dancing around beating drums. During halftime shows and New Years celebrations they’d come on stage and do spear tricks. Hispanics would be represented by a sombrero, and we’d often recount their rich history of innovative cuisine involving cheese. Inuit would be represented by a fuzzy jacket because all we’d care about--wherever they’re from—is that it’s really cold. Native Americans would always have huge feathered headdresses, and their primitive, aboriginal existence would lend legitimacy to our identity as a modern, progressive, unbeatable American force. Men would lust after Haitian babes because they’re so much looser than white women. Irish would be renowned for their ability to drink. So on and so forth. The whole thing would be a mythology based on some historical traditions, perverted, exaggerated, and molded to fit what white Americans want to see. All we’d need to be set is an ethnic theme park where we could traipse around gawking at the minorities in their natural habitat.

Which China has.


Welcome to the Beijing Ethnic Minorities Park.



It’s quite a beautiful park. The scenery is a great escape from Beijing which is largely grey with pollution and bland soviet-styled housing blocks.









Now that we’ve got the good out of the way, here’s what’s interesting about the park.
All of the 55 minorities are represented, meaning there’s a section with authentic housing and ethnic themes for everyone! Of course, most of these sections are depressing because the minorities who work there, which Beijing apparently went out and got from the actual minority region, just sit there looking depressed at their status as a human zoo animal. That’s just my guess though.





The more civilized an ethnicity is the closer it generally is to the entrance. The wilder the ethnicity the more rope bridges and dirt trails you have to cross to get there. And it’s great, because you can really tell which of the minorities are more dirty and primitive. They have pretty contrasting sections:







Most of the plaques read something along the lines of “{ethnicity} people are famous for their ability to sing and dance and their colorful style of dress. They are from {some place} and the {size rank} ethnicity in China.” It’s really clever the way all these minority cultures have such great singing and dancing. The Han must be very entertained.

As cynical as this is getting, it actually is a very well-designed park from an aesthetic and entertainment standpoint. So lets watch some singing and dancing, and some beautiful and exotic girls flinging water on each other. Hell, we may as well even participate, go primitive for a moment.
If you get a "movie no longer availible" message just go to youtube by double clicking on the video. All the videos are viewable, just maybe not more than 3 at a time or something










If you’re like me, you can’t really get to into any of it because you realize you’re watching ethnicities perform for a mostly Han audience so the Han can feel superior, much like animals at a zoo. So if that doesn’t make you angry, maybe this pathetic, shit-eating goose will:



Beijing Ethnic Minority Park has it all.



As easy as it is to accuse the Chinese of being naive, perhaps this is one place where we’d be unaware of our own naivety. America has a history of exoticizing its minorities as well. Think about the Washington Red Skins, Kansas City Chiefs, or the Cleveland Indians with their big red faces, feather dresses, and tomahawk chants. Only instead of a colorful costumes our urban black wears baggy clothes and gold chains. But man can negros dance. How about those pastoral Mexican laborers—“they work so hard!”

In the end I suppose we can pat ourselves on the back because we don’t have any ethnic parks, and our educational system takes time to defeat stereotypes, even requiring “difference, power and discrimination” credit in colleges. But as those courses teach us, we still have work to do to create a more inclusive and merit-driven society.

The popular dimension of Chinese nationalism

The following quote is from a Facebook wall post:

The bottom line for the government is their continued economic growth, and they need normal relations with the rest of the world in order to maintain it, but the contradiction that poses with the hate propaganda they keep spewing is bound to blow up in their faces at some point.

The so-called "hate propaganda" does blow up in their face. Not dramatically, but enough that it's becoming more common for the government to issue calls for restraint in the media than to try and fan nationalistic flames. Nowadays the Chinese themselves are carrying the torch. The boycott of Carrefour here was allegedly started over phone text messaging, as well as it’s ongoing support by people adding “(l)China” to their MSN names. This is grassroots action, not government nudging. When these grassroots efforts start to put political pressure on the party, or strain international relations the Party asks people to stop.

It also did so in 1999 after the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by American forces. When the government didn’t do anything hasty or drastic, popular outrage was expressed in letters to newspapers and on the internet. “The [Americans] know that our government policy is one of merely lodging ‘fierce protests [qianglie kangyi].’ Premier Zhu….Our government’s weak stance has created a distance between itself and the people….You are so capable…and we need you….But without the ‘people’s confidence [minxin]’ how can you lead China’s economic construction!” Surprisingly critical of the government wasn’t it? Instead of the typical support of the government, this kind of expression asks it for action. As a response Hu Jintao gave a speech which urged everyone to get back to work and study. So they (mostly) did.

This is a change from 1996 when the CCP didn't ask the people to do anything, they just outright banned China Can Say No for arbitrarily criticizing party policy. Of course, this is after the book was approved by party apparatus, like all paper publishing is, to this day in China, and after it instigated a lot of nationalist zeal against Japan and the US. Earlier that same year, Japanese boyscouts built a lighthouse on the Diaoyu islands and got China into a flurry. The government response then was just as decisive. They dispersed demonstrations in the street and took away students access to the internet for 10 days when students took their proesting there.

Patriotic actions require guidance.

The public must be dissuaded and prevented from organizing spontaneous meetings, demonstrations and protests.

The publicizing of activities by…printing or distributing documents, or using various means of communication is prohibited.

As you can see by comparison with the 1990's, the policy appears to be changing. This could be a sign of the political reform that the party sees as necessary, or in the words of Peter Gries whose work I borrowed heavily from in the above paragraphs, a sign “The CCP is losing its control over nationalist discourse.” So, if an incident were to "blow up" it wouldn’t just be in the face of the CCP but the people too. Both are responsible for the current nationalism.

With regards to the other part of the original quote, I disagree overall that there’s any threat to China’s economic interests, despite the fact that nationalism and anti-foreign sentiment is on the rise. The government might be vacillating, but I still think it’s at the reigns and not so stupid to jeopardize China’s rise by letting university students actually piss off the world. Besides, whiney students would have to do a lot more than boycott Carrefour for the world to turn its back on Chinese industry and markets. Never underestimate the power of money, or the degree to which the West can write off the views of Chinese people.