Yeah I know…one week late. Ever since my unexpected visa detour to Hong Kong, I’ve been exactly one week behind on everything for a month. Nevertheless, now up at The China Beat (mainland link here):
Like their May 4th predecessors, the young people of China write espousing a strong Chinese nation and their rhetoric is filled with pride and optimism for their country’s future. The passion and fire of May 4 is certainly there as well, even if the new media is an electronic one: Sohu, Tianya, and a universe of blogs and BBSs are the new New Youth.
But something is missing: The marketplace of ideas.
Today in China, even with the government tirelessly trying to limit access to alternative perspectives, bookstores and the Internet still abound with news, essays, translations, history, and philosophy, providing young people with an access to information far beyond the wildest dreams of their May 4 predecessors. But the desire to find out more, the craving to challenge assumptions and formulate multiple perspectives on complex issues is woefully absent. The youth of today write more than ever, more than any generation in recent memory with terabytes of opinion available online—but the anger and passion and fire of the May 4th generation are now enlisted in support of a single worldview and a single perspective on a range of issues. A whole generation whose arguments are hard-wired: an authoritarian success story.
You can read more and join the discussion at The China Beat. Enjoy.
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