Voices from China’s Past: Sima Qian on the Wisdom of News Blackouts

Ed Note: This post is the first by Sean, a graduate school colleague of mine currently in Taiwan doing research for his dissertation.  He’s one of the smartest guys I know and I’m really happy to have him contributing here to the Granite Studio.  Enjoy.  

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Shortsighted governments using the power of the state to silence criticism is nothing new, in China or anywhere else. Sima Qian, the founding father of Chinese Historiography, dealt with similar sorts of narrow-minded rulers in his day (and paid a steep price for it), and gave China’s future officials and princelings this timeless advice, in the form of an anecdote about King Li of Zhou:

[King Li of Zhou] acted cruelly and extravagantly.  The people in the capital spoke of the king’s faults.  The Duke of Shao remonstrated, saying: “Your people can no longer bear your orders.”  The king was angered.  He found a shaman from Wei and had him watch for criticism.  Whomever he reported was killed.  The criticism subsided, [but] the feudal lords stopped coming to court.  In the thirty-fourth year [of his reign], the king became even more stern.  No one in the capital dared to say a word, but

June 3rd, 2009

Back in Beijing in the middle of a blackout

Last week I was on an extended sojourn to the Russian borderlands of Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang.  I’m now back in Beijing and seem to have landed into the middle of a history blackout.  I’ve said it before, but nothing makes the CCP look more like a bunch of Kim Jong-il wannabes then when they pull one of these periodic returns to the bad old days of information blackouts and official stupidity.  

Whatever one’s view regarding the nature of the Tiananmen demonstrations and the way in which they were suppressed, for the historian, the stone-handed way the Chinese government is trying to block out all memory of the event is a depressing and sad reminder that this government is still being run by scared old men.

The ridiculous measures being undertaken in this pathetic campaign of official amnesia include increasing the thug count on the streets of Beijing, the exile of several octogenarians out of the capital, the censoring of foreign satellite signals, the interdiction of foreign newspapers, and even the blocking of social networking sites like Twitter (Really? By-the-minute 140-word updates of the dinner plans of Perez Hilton or what song is playing at Shaq’s crib is going

June 3rd, 2009

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