Given the foul called by Twitter's CEO at a press conference at SXSW last week and Google's "99.9% certain" pulldown of its G.cn product amid China's refusal to lift censorship requirements, it's no big shock that the West has gotten its collective panties in a proverbial twist. Unsurprisingly, some of the coverage from the mainstream media has become a little, well, paranoid. Read below to learn about an exciting new sport:
The art of China-watching is imprecise at best, and hardly deserves yet to be called Sinology. The explanation, or blame, for this often frustrating situation lies mainly with the way the Chinese conduct their affairs. To say the Chinese have a penchant for secrecy is almost an understatement.
Twitter's co-founder came out fighting against said secrecy at SXSW: "The Internet is a tidal wave that is going to be impossible for anyone to keep out." Indeed, the impermeability of the Great Firewall has created a sort of "information prison," leaving ordinary Chinese citizens unable to update their friends and families as to which fast food they're enjoying, raise animals in Farmville or even indulge in a little pornography in the comfort of their own homes. And what can be said for Beijing political season?
Each time a new job opens up in China, it evidently becomes a political nightmare just to get a small group of people to agree on who should fill it. Most Chinese, even those in officialdom, can at best take only wild guesses as to who sits in what job until the appointments are announced by the Chinese press.
Politicians threatening reporters, non-corrupt officials and environmental policy transparency, oh my! In spite of recent reports from both in and outside of China that government procedures are becoming more and more open, speculation is still abound that everything here remains rigged, rulled by "guanxi" and fancy cars. Even officials aren't immune:
Because the Chinese people, and even many officials, are often kept in the dark about domestic politics, the usual problems of obtaining clandestine information about denied areas are magnified in the case of China. Officials abroad are often as confused about domestic developments as western observers are.
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