“An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will” – Thomas Jefferson
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Blogspot is down. Blogsome is down. Type pad. Word press.
People are pissed.
Two things come to mind:
1) This is going to get worse before it gets better. The CCP has shown no particular evidence that such niceties as “access to information” and “a more open media for 2008″ are going to have any effect on their haphazard and arbitrary blocking of internet sites here in the Olympic city.
2) Why bother?
Seriously. Why bother blocking foreign bloggers or foreign media sites? Do the Chinese people really sit in front of their screens hitting refresh, refresh, refresh to check out what some laowai thought of last night’s gongbao jiding? Is the CCP so weak–in such imminent danger of losing its legitimacy–that it can be brought down by the strangled tones of the BBC World Service?
Apparently the website Flickr is blocked now, too. Well, that’s a relief because I’m sure Hu Jintao sweated through his jammies at night worrying that photographic evidence of “Bobby Sue’s Sweet Sixteen at the Marietta, GA Holiday Inn and Conference Center” was going to unleash a second Cultural Revolution.
If the CCP truly is a legitimate regime and the PRC wishes to take its place among the community of modern, enlightened nations, then the powers-that-be need to stop acting like a bunch of cowards, come out from behind their Great Firewall, and open the flow of information.
Surely, there is nothing to fear from a well-informed citizenry? Right, guys?
I totally agree. Why bother? So few Chinese read foreign blogs or any foreign website period that it seems like a complete waste of time to bother in the first place. On the other hand, I don’t imagine the Chinese government gives a rat’s ass about us foreigners and those few Chinese in China who are inconvenienced by the censorship of foreign sites.
hell. yes.
if i were a more erudite person, i’d throw in that classical anecdote about the king who wanted to stop up the mouths of the people, and was told by an advisor that the fallout would be as catastropic as damming up a river with no outlet, but i cannot for the life of me remember where i read it, or who wrote it.
at any rate, the chinese government should be more concerned about what its citizens are saying on the streets of china about how they’re running the country. foreign blogs are the least of their worries (ditto for the bush administration and people’s daily)
It’s such a tired issue, yet nothing affects us in-China netizens more (particularly us bloggers), and so it needs discussion.
I do think that with loads of talk about it, eventually that buzz will filter up and get some recognition… and that recognition might be the straw…
Or at least one could hope. The world is largely run by good PR… and that might help things for the better – despite what recent months have shown.