I’ve said it before, but nothing makes the CCP look more like a bunch of insecure moonbats than their fixation on “guiding public opinion” (read: censorship and propaganda). The 2009 SCIO Internet News Work training session recently wrapped up in Beijing, and over the next few days China Digital Times is publishing translated notes from [...]
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Time reviews Founding of the Republic. I confess, I still haven’t seen the film out of protest over SARFT’s rejection of my suggested translation, The Birth of a (Chinese) Nation. Unsurprisingly, the film reveals just as much about the contemporary concerns of China’s current crop of politicians as it does about the founders of the [...] In class two weeks ago we were watching the documentary series China From the Inside when one of my students asked, with some reason, that if there was so much hardship and discontent why does the CCP enjoy such broad support? It was a good question, and like all good questions it depends on whom you [...] I’m not a tech guy, but I despise state-sponsored censorship, so I’ve been following the epic fail of the Green Dam software with a certain admitted sense of schadenfreude. The whole thing has been a disaster from the start which is rather amazing given the usual attention Chinese state-owned companies pay to such things as [...] Half the town on any given day is wearing white. While Wang Dan may have been going for a ’subtle gesture of protest,’ it’s possible the ‘wear white day’ idea was a little too subtle. Kind of like: “If you wish to honor the memory of the Tiananmen dead, don’t shave your left eyebrow completely off on Thursday morning.” [...] A few random hits from around the China blogosophere on this Sunday morning… **** In Foreign Affairs, Mixin Pei considers the challenges facing the Communist Party as the world’s economy tumbles downward and even China’s much bally-hooed economic miracle takes a bit of a stumble: Until recently, most leading China watchers thought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had [...] A few quick and final hits on a week of Tibetan nonsense…Michael Albada has a nice piece in the Stanford Progressive that reminds us cutting through the rhetoric from both sides of the Tibet debate is essential to reconciling the situation there: Tibet has gained a highly romanticized, idealistic image that does not stand up to [...] Irrepressible Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu, whose grip on reality would give Syd Barrett circa 1967 a run for his money,* called the situation in the Τibetαn regions of China “stable” on the same day that the government declared giant swathes of western China off-limits to foreign travelers. I must be in a classic rock mood [...] It’s probably fair to say that the relationship between Obama and Zhongnanhai has gotten off to an uneven start. On one hand, we have presidential hatchet man treasury secretary Timothy Geithner’s provocative comments on revaluation of the yuan (can I say again, as somebody who gets paid in US dollars, easy does it boys), on [...] It’s interesting how the insult of hurling a shoe at someone with whom you disagree is catching on. I’m not really in favor of people lobbing their loafers at speakers but it sure beats hand grenades. The only thing about the Wen Jiabao “shoe incident”: When it happened to George Bush it was shown a gazillion times [...] Today is the birthday of Cai Yuanpei (1868-1940). A classically-trained scholar who later decided to broaden his education and study in Germany, he was Minister of Education (briefly) under Yuan Shikai and (more famously) the chancellor of Peking University during the New Culture Era. Chancellor Cai took over a campus squalid with the scions of [...] I’m not a huge fan of the RFA and I rarely, if ever, link to it but this piece written by Bao Tong is an interesting take on the events of the pivotal 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Congress. Bao Tong’s account departs from the triumphalist narrative of Deng Xiaoping kicking open the [...] |
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Seeking truth from whatever…
For what it’s worth, David Bandurski and his team at China Media Project absolutely rock, and today’s commentary and translation of a bit of whiny blather from Qiu Shi on “people being mean to China” or some other such spray of sputum and self-pity is just the latest in a line of great posts. For [...]