Well, that's kind of a simplification of the situation. The internet is censored mostly along political lines, and 90% of the censorship occurs in Chinese, because the censors don't speak foreign languages. This means most of the websites being filtered out are internal dialog not external information.

Communist ideology means that there is a high degree of intellectual stagnation, but honestly if you take a competitive view with China where we have to be number one or ahead of them, then you are already behind.

China is part of the trans-national playing field where borders lose their significance in the onslaught of telecommunications. The important feature of the web is things like emai...

Well, that's kind of a simplification of the situation. The internet is censored mostly along political lines, and 90% of the censorship occurs in Chinese, because the censors don't speak foreign languages. This means most of the websites being filtered out are internal dialog not external information.

Communist ideology means that there is a high degree of intellectual stagnation, but honestly if you take a competitive view with China where we have to be number one or ahead of them, then you are already behind.

China is part of the trans-national playing field where borders lose their significance in the onslaught of telecommunications. The important feature of the web is things like email, which enable me to send files instantly, and correspond in real time with people accross the ocean, making it possible to run a factory in China from an office in Chicago.

There are problems in this model as well, and they especially manifest themselves in miss-communications on quality control, but it's certainly not going to slow the economies down.

The trans-national flow works the other way in favor of America on innovation. The brain-drain is a big problem here. Most of the American innovation you see probably involves large amounts of Chinese born and educated inventors, designers, and engineers, but they all move to America to do that work.

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I wish USA Americans would get off their high-horse and stop preaching to the world. It's not our business to make the world into our own image and often it's criticism intended as an excuse justify policies of invasion or confrontation.

I don't think, for example, that the Western world was so much concerned about "freedom of religion," in China in the past centuries OR now, as it's interest were to exploit natural resources of others.

Under the pretense of bringing "freedom of speech," "freedom of religion," "democracy," etc. what Western nations & the U.S. in particular really bring is self-interests.

We should do a little more looking in the mirror and le...

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I wish USA Americans would get off their high-horse and stop preaching to the world. It's not our business to make the world into our own image and often it's criticism intended as an excuse justify policies of invasion or confrontation.

I don't think, for example, that the Western world was so much concerned about "freedom of religion," in China in the past centuries OR now, as it's interest were to exploit natural resources of others.

Under the pretense of bringing "freedom of speech," "freedom of religion," "democracy," etc. what Western nations & the U.S. in particular really bring is self-interests.

We should do a little more looking in the mirror and less blaming of others.

RE: The library.

Wow! Looks great. Enjoy.

The library in my small town recently moved from a small dark building to a brilliant building with lots of space and light. It's a nice feeling to be there.

Although 1989 and American infringments on civil liberties are a little outside the theme of this clip, there is one thing I would like to say...

Oppression is a subtle thing. So subtle, in fact, you normally don't notice it going on, because most things feel normal. Many Americans presume that America is a shinning bastion of freedom, while the rest of the world suffers in the darkness of cruel slavery to their dictators. The reality is not quite so simple. In China, or America, or just about any other country in time of peace, you can carry on most of your daily life without ever bumping into those "oppressive" limitations. It's not "1984," or "Fahrenheit 451." The greatest problem with o...

Although 1989 and American infringments on civil liberties are a little outside the theme of this clip, there is one thing I would like to say...

Oppression is a subtle thing. So subtle, in fact, you normally don't notice it going on, because most things feel normal. Many Americans presume that America is a shinning bastion of freedom, while the rest of the world suffers in the darkness of cruel slavery to their dictators. The reality is not quite so simple. In China, or America, or just about any other country in time of peace, you can carry on most of your daily life without ever bumping into those "oppressive" limitations. It's not "1984," or "Fahrenheit 451." The greatest problem with oppression is that it is almost never distopian. So much so that people living in an oppressed society often feel they are free.

So you will be surprised if you come to China. It doesn't feel that much different from America. China is more free than you realize. And what is more, if you set aside your pride and nationalism, you have to admit, America is not as free as you make it out to be.

***

As for 1989, it is important to remember that this was not simply a collection of Chinese Thomas Jeffersons and John Adamses. Although the words they used, like "freedom" and "democracy" evoke very deep and specific feelings in Americans, we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking these words mean the same thing to the Chinese.

I know no Chinese people who have any interest at all in using voting as a tool to steer the legislative agenda of the government, as we do in America. In China democracy is mostly desired not because they think every person has the God-given right to control the government, but because they think democracy will be the most efficient tool to fight corruption and nepotism. They approach these concepts from a totally different paradigm then we do.

The reason for that is that, in a complex world, you guys are both right. With something so big and complex as the situation in China (or the situation in America, for that matter) people normally exercise a significant ammount of selectivity without realizing it.

What citizenfbk is looking at one part of the American equation, and has essentially valid views on it. On the other hand, right wing clippers like Record Sage and Willhelm, equally informed and reasonable, look at different parts of the equation, and also draw valid conclusions. They conflict when they try to generalize or cross-apply their conclusions in different situations.

You also make a very good point, and as an Ameri...

The reason for that is that, in a complex world, you guys are both right. With something so big and complex as the situation in China (or the situation in America, for that matter) people normally exercise a significant ammount of selectivity without realizing it.

What citizenfbk is looking at one part of the American equation, and has essentially valid views on it. On the other hand, right wing clippers like Record Sage and Willhelm, equally informed and reasonable, look at different parts of the equation, and also draw valid conclusions. They conflict when they try to generalize or cross-apply their conclusions in different situations.

You also make a very good point, and as an American living here, I certainly chaffe under a lot of the things the dictatorship does that simply don't bother Chinese people. Especially the slogans, which get my dander up, even though they are just words.

A lot of Chinese feel that they actually did achieve the goals of 1980s dissidents, primarily unprecendented social freedoms and most importantly, the opportunity to move up in society and earn a living based on your own hard work, ingenuity and talent, rather than being locked into the communist system of stagnation.

Certain things, though, most specifically internet censorship, still do piss of the Chinese though, and those are the things that will be forced to change.

ouyangwulong - I agree with your assessment that the world (and it's human institutions) are complex. Which is why I would caution you not to assume what any population of people desire or wish for - to assume that there was no Chinese Thomas Jefferson. Democracy (something the U.S., in many ways, does not have) is a basin of attraction in human systems.
Probably one of the few things we can say with much assurance in this complex world is that humans are non-linear. A poll of what fashion of government (heavily influenced by the centralized and networkized meme/ propaganda system [and this is true of the U.S. as well]) is not an indication of where the system is actually capable of going...

ouyangwulong - I agree with your assessment that the world (and it's human institutions) are complex. Which is why I would caution you not to assume what any population of people desire or wish for - to assume that there was no Chinese Thomas Jefferson. Democracy (something the U.S., in many ways, does not have) is a basin of attraction in human systems.
Probably one of the few things we can say with much assurance in this complex world is that humans are non-linear. A poll of what fashion of government (heavily influenced by the centralized and networkized meme/ propaganda system [and this is true of the U.S. as well]) is not an indication of where the system is actually capable of going. For the longest time people thought that the Soviet Union had a very stable form of government and that the western democracies were unstable, constantly changing, zig-zagging from one course to another (and in fact you hear some corners, at least within the U.S., continue such talk today - a la Bush's "too much freedom" quote). The problem with such a "stable" system is that it is incapable of flexibility when the tipping points of change sweep human systems.
China I believe learned from that and has taken a generally wise course of slowly opening, letting institutions and people adjust to new ways. But any government that has to crush people under tanks and then spend the next twenty years preventing any discussion of the event even down to the smallest chat room in the smallest corner of the internet is, in my book, a failed form of government. Now the government that slaughtered those young idealists may well be gone, having been replaced by a younger generation that has allowed business people and others some more leeway in how they will live their lives (is this not freedom?). But proof is in the pudding - it will be interesting to see if the Party can let go more so the reins of civil society - time will tell. But do the Chinese Jeffersons have the patients?

I think the final point to make here is represented by the library and why this post has attracked this sort of attention, at least from me. The issue here is information. The problem with the present government in China is that it does not trust its people with information. It prevents certain information from getting out, will control how it gets out and the way it gets out. Now one may say that is true of any government but then one would be showing their ignorance at the level, the totality, with which the Chinese government at least attempts to do so.

Don't try to take pictures of a protest (never mind actually protest) or have your camera taken from you. Don't try to read wester...

I think the final point to make here is represented by the library and why this post has attracked this sort of attention, at least from me. The issue here is information. The problem with the present government in China is that it does not trust its people with information. It prevents certain information from getting out, will control how it gets out and the way it gets out. Now one may say that is true of any government but then one would be showing their ignorance at the level, the totality, with which the Chinese government at least attempts to do so.

Don't try to take pictures of a protest (never mind actually protest) or have your camera taken from you. Don't try to read western news articles or listen to NPR online or post to blogger (of course there are work-arounds), don't bring printed material from Hong Kong into the mainland, and certainly don't post your non-belief in the government on a website (For all that some find bad about the U.S. [and I have my constructive criticisms too] where does most of this sort of discussion occur?) I do not believe that a person in Beijing who is losing their home to a developer wishes that this information would not be made public, that person in Guizhou does not want to know about the dangerous degradation of their water quality due to industrial pollution, or a farmer in Fujian does not care that government edicts will lose them their land. In fact the 60,000 reported riots in 2004 alone in China speak otherwise.

So yes, a very pretty library and thanks for the pictures. I just hope that maybe, one day, its purpose match its beauty.

First, I think you probably have a more diverse understanding than you are presenting here, since you are focusing on one issue, but for people with less familiarity with China, it is easy for them to filter everything through the lense of seeing oppression.

For your information, many people (though not all) in China actually can access blogger and post, can listen to NPR or read foreign newspapers, can watch CNN or the BBC, can bring in printed material from Taiwan or Hong Kong, and even protest. Some protestors are arrested, some bloggers are imprisoned, but there are also lots who aren't. Although these are injustices, it would be a mistake to think injustice is pervasive in China. And...

First, I think you probably have a more diverse understanding than you are presenting here, since you are focusing on one issue, but for people with less familiarity with China, it is easy for them to filter everything through the lense of seeing oppression.

For your information, many people (though not all) in China actually can access blogger and post, can listen to NPR or read foreign newspapers, can watch CNN or the BBC, can bring in printed material from Taiwan or Hong Kong, and even protest. Some protestors are arrested, some bloggers are imprisoned, but there are also lots who aren't. Although these are injustices, it would be a mistake to think injustice is pervasive in China. And for that matter, laundry lists of government abuses of power are equally easy to generate for most countries.

Certainly we should work to correct the injustices of the world, but there is a danger in righteousness. Boycotts by righteous westerners pressured British Tobacco to close its factories in Burma. The direct result is that an estimated 4,000 women were forced into prostiution when their factory jobs left thanks to this moral victory.

There are no Chinese Jeffersons because Jefferson's philosophy was influenced by a different social context and backgroung. There will be great Chinese leaders, but they don't always think the same way we do about things. The unspoken expectation that someday China should or will adopt an American style government is a major obstacle to progress.

But sometimes a library is just a library. Its primary function is not as a forum for political rexamination and self-criticism. There are few books on 1989, and most of them gloss over it, or take a "balanced" view that vindicates the government. On the other hand, look at your own library. How many books do they have on the Kent State Massacre? How many books examining the violent anti-war movment and 60s radicals don't take the government's side?

In my home town of Seattle we don't have a single book that I know of in our library about the police crack down on WTO protestors. The Japanese certainly don't fill the libraries with books about their WWII atrocities. Most countries tend to ...

But sometimes a library is just a library. Its primary function is not as a forum for political rexamination and self-criticism. There are few books on 1989, and most of them gloss over it, or take a "balanced" view that vindicates the government. On the other hand, look at your own library. How many books do they have on the Kent State Massacre? How many books examining the violent anti-war movment and 60s radicals don't take the government's side?

In my home town of Seattle we don't have a single book that I know of in our library about the police crack down on WTO protestors. The Japanese certainly don't fill the libraries with books about their WWII atrocities. Most countries tend to try not to dwell on their inglorious moments. This probably has more to do with human nature than authoritarian ideology.

This library is full of mostly the same books you find in any library: literature, refference tomes on obscure flora and fauna, classics of ancient scholarship, volume after volume attempting to explain a byzantine tax code, and fluffy light weight books trying to boil down topics like history or politics until they are insipid enough for general consumption.

Hidden deep in the stacks is the good stuff: obscure texts, banned authors, dissident poets. You can also find all of that here, its just not easy. It's not easy in any library.

As far as it serving it's purpose, I would say it does as good of a job as any others. You have very valid criticisms of the Chinese government, but they are missplaced when you extend them to the library, and thus, they would lose force if you, like me, were forced to defend then to a Chinese audience.

And by the way, the Chinese do complain loudly and often to their government, as do I, but they also don't like to bring up sore points. And most peole are willing to talk politely about politics, though they try to avoid losing friends over it. And in a "free" and "democratic" China, this would still be the case.

No doubt about it that China is close to a modern and advanced society - not some lockstep Stalinist nation. Though I would say that civil society is seriously under developed due to the government's fear. When there is a free walking Chinese Chomsky, then there might be an indication of further progress.

I am not advocating that outsiders lecture the Chinese (or anyone) as it is usually counter productive. That said, those with open minds will actually appreciate the constructive criticisms of outsiders (and always keep in mind that they cannot know the full picture) since they can offer a new perspective.

I agree that the Chinese people know that there are problems ... but do they kno...

No doubt about it that China is close to a modern and advanced society - not some lockstep Stalinist nation. Though I would say that civil society is seriously under developed due to the government's fear. When there is a free walking Chinese Chomsky, then there might be an indication of further progress.

I am not advocating that outsiders lecture the Chinese (or anyone) as it is usually counter productive. That said, those with open minds will actually appreciate the constructive criticisms of outsiders (and always keep in mind that they cannot know the full picture) since they can offer a new perspective.

I agree that the Chinese people know that there are problems ... but do they know them well?

I would disagree that there are no Chinese Jeffersons since the basin of attraction that is this freedom is not restricted to either genes (you did not say nor imply this - I just added this for those who take such stands) or memes. It is my argument that such strivings are universal, though obviously expressed through cultural filters.

The library is a beacon of open access to knowledge - the exact opposite of what the present government represents.

Kmcolo, that is certainly a good point, and I would not want to be lumped in with the Asian Values thinkers who say "despotism is inherent in the Oriental mind, and Orientals cannot accept democracy." (This is actually an argument made most often not by westerners but by "Orientals" themselves, especially dictators like Lee Kwan Yu in Singapore.)

However, I think boiling Thomas Jefferson down to simply an iconic symbol of freedom paints with too broad of a brush. Although that may be what he means to Americans, we forget that he was part of a complex philosophical lineage involving social contract philosophers like John Locke and utilitarian thinkers like J.S. Mill. Freedom is just the mos...

Kmcolo, that is certainly a good point, and I would not want to be lumped in with the Asian Values thinkers who say "despotism is inherent in the Oriental mind, and Orientals cannot accept democracy." (This is actually an argument made most often not by westerners but by "Orientals" themselves, especially dictators like Lee Kwan Yu in Singapore.)

However, I think boiling Thomas Jefferson down to simply an iconic symbol of freedom paints with too broad of a brush. Although that may be what he means to Americans, we forget that he was part of a complex philosophical lineage involving social contract philosophers like John Locke and utilitarian thinkers like J.S. Mill. Freedom is just the most prominent feature of the set of values that are embodied by the ideas of Jefferson.

My point is that, although Chinese also yearn for freedom, the leaders of China in its move forward will come at this from a fundamentally different point of view, with different background, and different practical objectives. Thus China will not travel the same road as America. It may be taking a path that seems totally alien to us, but although they travel a different road, their destination is the same as ours.

I cannot stress enough: the protestors of 1989 did not all have the goals of simple, Jeffersonian electoral democracy. Certainly some may have, and I can't account for all the people in China, but I have never found a single person in China who wants to vote on "Olympic Terrace Water District Administrative Propostion Number 4" like I did last year, supporting a marginal increase in local real estate taxes to compensate for increased overhead spending due to drainage complications around a new construction site.

So my point is: China is making progress towards the goals of its people, and because those goals are different from ours, it sometimes may look like they aren't making progress, but if you look at what's happened over the years, the change is unmistakable.