The China Thread

[Syt]

The Wen Family Empire


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/25/business/the-wen-family-empire.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/world/asia/china-blocks-web-access-to-new-york-times.html?smid=fb-nytimes&_r=0

HONG KONG — The Chinese government swiftly blocked access early Friday morning to the Chinese-language Web site of The New York Times from computers in mainland China and gradually halted access to the English-language site as well after the news organization posted an article in both languages describing wealth accumulated by the family of the country's prime minister.

The authorities were also blocking attempts to mention The Times or the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, in postings on Sina Weibo, an extremely popular mini-blogging service in China that resembles Twitter.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman on duty in Beijing early Friday morning did not immediately answer phone calls for comment.

China maintains the world's most extensive and sophisticated system for Internet censorship, employing tens of thousands of people to monitor what is said, delete entries that contravene the country's extensive and unpublished regulations and even write new entries that are favorable to the government.

Rebecca MacKinnon, a senior fellow specializing in Internet free expression and privacy issues at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan group headquartered in Washington, said that the Chinese interruption of Internet access was typical of the response to information that offended leaders.

"This is what they do: they get mad, they block you," she said.

The English-language and Chinese-language Web sites of The Times are hosted on servers outside mainland China.

A spokeswoman for The Times, Eileen Murphy, expressed disappointment that Internet access had been blocked and noted that the Chinese-language Web site had attracted "great interest" in China.

"We hope that full access is restored shortly, and we will ask the Chinese authorities to ensure that our readers in China can continue to enjoy New York Times journalism," she said in a statement, adding, "We will continue to report and translate stories applying the same journalistic standards that are upheld across The New York Times."

Former President Jiang Zemin of China ordered an end to blocking of The New York Times Web site after meeting with journalists from The Times in August 2001. The company's Web sites, like those of most other foreign media organizations, have remained mostly free of blocking since then, with occasional, temporary exceptions.

By midmorning on Friday in China, access to both the English- and Chinese-language Web sites of The Times was blocked from all 31 cities in mainland China tested. The Times had posted the article in English at 4:34 p.m. on Thursday in New York (4:34 a.m. Friday in Beijing), and finished posting the article in Chinese by 8 a.m. Friday in Beijing after the translation of final edits to the English-language version. So Chinese blockage of Web access followed very quickly.

Publication of the article about Mr. Wen and his family comes at a delicate time in Chinese politics, during a year in which factional rivalries and the personal lives of Chinese leaders have come into public view to a rare extent and drawn unprecedented international interest.

The Times's statement called China "an increasingly open society, with increasingly sophisticated media," adding, "The response to our site suggests that The Times can play an important role in the government's efforts to raise the quality of journalism available to the Chinese people."

The New York Times is not the first international organization to run into trouble with Chinese censors. Google decided to move its servers for the Chinese market in January 2010, to Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory outside the country's censorship firewalls, after the company was unable to reach an agreement with the Chinese authorities to allow unrestricted searches of the Internet.

Bloomberg published an article on June 29 describing wealth accumulated by the family of Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to become the country's next top leader as general secretary of the Communist Party during the coming Party Congress.

Since then, Bloomberg's operations have encountered a series of problems in mainland China, including the blocking of its Web site, which is in English.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

it does explain in part why Ping An is trying to sue the belgian government over losses suffered when Fortis Bank and Insurance collapsed in 2008/9

[CountDeMoney]

Never. They aren't a totalitarian state (anymore) in the sense westerners understand, but rather something rather different.

You should stop smoking your own pubic hair.

[Jacob]

Never. They aren't a totalitarian state (anymore) in the sense westerners understand, but rather something rather different.

You should stop smoking your own pubic hair.

He's right, though. You are still stuck in the 70s apparently.

[CountDeMoney]

Never. They aren't a totalitarian state (anymore) in the sense westerners understand, but rather something rather different.

You should stop smoking your own pubic hair.

He's right, though. You are still stuck in the 70s apparently.

Totalitarian is still totalitarian, regardless of the branding, you filthy Sinopologist traitor.  Replacing tanks with internet blocs doesn't change that.

[Jacob]

The details about Wen's family finances were leaked on the same day as Bo was formally expelled from the party. It's not the kind of thing an investigative journalist would come across either. Right now, the US press is being used as part of the war being waged at the heart of the Chinese Communist Party.

Most likely a significant amount (if not all of it) of the anti-Japanese demonstrations are an attempt at a show of strength by the faction Bo was/is part of.

[CountDeMoney]

China blocks New York Times Web site after report on leader's wealth

No, not totalitarian at all.

[Jacob]

China blocks New York Times Web site after report on leader's wealth

No, not totalitarian at all.

I guess it depends on how you define totalitarian. I have to agree that you can legitimately call present-day China totalitarian.

Still, it has different characteristics than totalitarian China 20 years ago, not to mention 50 years ago.

[Jacob]

This looks like a worthwhile if depressing read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20410424

[mongers]

This looks like a worthwhile if depressing read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20410424

Yes, I was just reading that.

Also interesting how he went about getting the information from different government/provincial departments.

[dps]

China blocks New York Times Web site after report on leader’s wealth

No, not totalitarian at all.

I guess it depends on how you define totalitarian. I have to agree that you can legitimately call present-day China totalitarian.

Still, it has different characteristics than totalitarian China 20 years ago, not to mention 50 years ago.

It's definately authoritarian, if not totalitarian.  Either way, it's a one-party state with a terrible disregard for a lot of what most Americans would consider basic human rights.  Heh--it could be characterized as a one-party state in which the party itself can't decide if it wants to be authoritarian or totalitarian.

[Razgovory]

Authoritarian, yes, but totalitarian no.  Totalitarian is more like an ideal, where the state has a major role in your entire life.  I'm not sure Nazi Germany was ever totalitarian.  It aspired to be, but was didn't last long enough and was too incompetent.  It take a lot of effort to have that much control.  East Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, and Pol Pot's Cambodia are all totalitarian or close enough.  North Korea probably is, but since so little information comes out of there it's difficult to tell.  I don't think China ever was Totalitarian.  Mao's failures in statesmanship required the cultural revolution, bringing out the mob to suppress his enemies.  The NKVD would have just made potential enemies "disappear" with out all the chaos.  While I don't think China ever accomplished Totalitarian rule, most communist regimes aspired to it.  It simply takes enormous resources to turn your entire country into a prison.

[Camerus]

Totalitarian states seek to control ever measure of a person's life, and tolerate virtually no dissenting opinions, or even works of any kind that could be considered harmful.

Examples of such states would be Stalin's USSR, Nazi Germany, and arguably North Korea (at least for most of its history).

Modern China is authoritarian, but it cannot be considered totalitarian IMO because:
- it does tolerate some divergence of views and dicussion (albeit within real limits, hence 'authoritarian)
- it doesn't seek to mold individuals to reshape human behaviours or create a new man
- similarly, it doesn't seek to control all aspects of a person's life
- it doesn't force-feed ideology to nearly the same degree as above mentioned states
- in practice it tolerates a wide measure of non-approved works.

Thus while they are by no means democratic, nor are they "totalitarian."

[Razgovory]

I would disagree with Nazi Germany as Totalitarian.  The Nazi state was chaotic and it's internal security forces inept.  You don't have a massive army coup attempt in a totalitarian society.  While the coup failed (mostly because it as a dumb plan), it does indicate the lack of control the Government had over it's own people.

[dps]

I would disagree with Nazi Germany as Totalitarian.  The Nazi state was chaotic and it's internal security forces inept.  You don't have a massive army coup attempt in a totalitarian society.  While the coup failed (mostly because it as a dumb plan), it does indicate the lack of control the Government had over it's own people.

It was totalitarian within the bounds of the main point of Pitiful Pathos' definition, which pretty much matches other definitions I've seen:

Totalitarian states seek to control ever measure of a person's life

The fact that someone occasionally manages to smuggle a few Bibles into North Korea doesn't make North Korea less totalitarian;  it just means that the government's claim of total authority over all areas of every citizen's life hasn't been achieved yet.  That Nazi Germany was even further from actually having that much control doesn't mean that it wasn't what they were aiming at.

Contrast that with a typical 2-bit dictatorship, where as long as you don't challange the ruling government's political control, pay the right bribes to the right people, and generally don't rock the boat too much, then the government doesn't much care what you do otherwise.