In the wake of President Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, and this CNN poll indicating most Americans think Tibet should be independent, the Dalai Lama went on Larry King Live. In keeping with that show’s tradition of internet straw polling, Larry asked viewers the same question CNN asked Americans last week: Should Tibet be [...]
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Tags: Anti-CNN, Censorship, Dalai Lama, Tibet
Posted in Current Events, Politics • 32 Comments »
The constitution of the People’s Republic of China states that Chinese citizens have “have the duty as well as the right to receive education [and that they] have the freedom to engage in scientific research, literary and artistic creation and other cultural pursuits.” Yet anyone who has set foot in a Chinese classroom — or [...]
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Tags: Alec Ash, Censorship, Education, Han Han
Posted in Culture, Interviews, Opinions • 36 Comments »
Of course China’s internet is open and free. Can Ms Clinton not visit our sites at any time she pleases? Not only China’s internet is open, but China’s jails are open. – We can enter at any time. Our hospitals are also open, we can apply for surgery to check our lungs at any time. Our organised criminal gangs are free and open. – You could be a boss today, but tomorrow you could freely go to jail and become a member. Our corrupt officials are even more free, they can get money whenever they like and then have the possibility of an American green card…
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Tags: Censorship, internet
Posted in Science and Technology, Translations • 8 Comments »
The following is an original translation of a post by lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan. Ironically, the post was quickly deleted from his blog (see the delete notification he got here), but the essay has been reposted here.
Translation
On January 21 Hilary Clinton made a speech at the Newseum journalism museum in Washington about the freedom of the [...]
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Tags: Censorship, Hillary Clinton, internet, Liu Xiaoyuan
Posted in Science and Technology, Translations • 23 Comments »
The following is a translation of this post from blogger/writer/race car driver Han Han. Note that I have translated ”黄段子“ (literally, “yellow texts”) variously as “inappropriate texts”, “sexy texts”, and “pornographic texts” depending on what I think works best in context.
Translation
Today, all over the nation, the crackdown has started on pornographic/inappropriate text messages. In [...]
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Tags: Censorship, Han Han, Sexting
Posted in Culture, Current Events, Translations • 12 Comments »
The following is a translation of this post from Tiger Temple, about the ordeal and presumed death of a homeless man in Bobai, Guangxi. This post contains disturbing images and may be NSFW.
Translation
When Ren Zi called that night from a Guangxi street, he was standing beside a vagrant. His voice choking repeatedly with sobs, he [...]
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Tags: Censorship, Homelessness, Injustice, Tiger Temple
Posted in International Relations • 4 Comments »
Things have been depressing for China watchers as of late. Increased censorship, Google’s threat to leave, Liu Xiaobo’s sentencing, Gao Zhisheng’s probable execution…it’s been a rough month. But you’ll be happy to know that a few encouraging things have happened!
First of all, the recent reports that “sexting” would be banned appear to have been erroneous. [...]
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Tags: Censorship, Cultural Revolution, Good News, internet, Xinjiang
Posted in Current Events, History, Science and Technology • 2 Comments »
Blogger/author/race car driver/faux bad-boy Han Han recently posted a very tongue-in-cheek essay predicting China’s future in reaction to the news about Google. It has since been deleted, probably by Sina’s editors, but the Chinese original can be found here, among other places, and Roland Soong of ESWN has already translated it. The whole thing is [...]
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Tags: Ai Weiwei, Censorship, Han Han, Michael Anti, Predictions
Posted in Current Events, Translations • 7 Comments »
I wrote about this in our “While You Were Reading About Google” post, but I’m pretty sure no one read it because everyone was caught up in the Google story. Perhaps they still all. This story is worth your time, though, because it has implications that potentially rival, if not surpass, those of Google’s potential [...]
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Tags: Censorship, Sex
Posted in Current Events, Politics, Science and Technology • 4 Comments »
Commenter wooddoo posted a rumor apparently going around that as of today, there is officially no more Google China. Can anyone confirm this?
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Tags: Censorship, Google
Posted in Current Events • 7 Comments »