Chinese Premier's CNN Interview Censored, Netizen's React - China Real Time Report - WSJ

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An official news blackout in China surrounding Premier Wen Jiabao’s interview over the weekend with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria hasn’t kept it from becoming one of the hottest topics on the Chinese Internet. If anything, censorship has only made it hotter—possibly giving Wen additional political clout in the process. “The longer the newspapers refuse to report it, the more need there is for us to discuss it vigorously,” one user on Sina Weibo, Sina.com’s popular Twitter-like micro-blogging service, wrote about the interview. “Sunlight at last!” wrote another on the website of Phoenix TV, one of the few online sites that published a Chinese summary of the interview. The exclusive interview, Wen’s first with a Western journalist since he spoke with Zakaria in 2008 on CNN, began spreading through the Chinese Internet almost as soon as it was posted online. Already a popular figure among the masses at home, Wen has been making waves in and outside of China recently by openly discussing political reform, including on a visit to Shenzhen in August during which he predicted China’s economic reforms would eventually fail without reforms to the country’s political system (in Chinese). Speaking through a translator to Zakaria, Wen was calm and measured throughout the interview, and clearly came prepared on the topic of reform, sidestepping a challenge from Zakaria on censorship with a nevertheless strong statement in support of greater freedom. “I believe I and all the Chinese people have such a conviction that China will make continuous progress and the people’s wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible,” Wen said. “I hope that you will be able to gradually see the continuous progress of China.” Later, addressing allegations that he has yet to walk the reform he talks about, he says: “I would like to tell you the following two sentences to reinforce my case on this or my view on this point, that is, I will not fall in spite of a strong wind and harsh rain and I will not yield till the last day of my life.” There has been skepticism about whether Wen’s comments in recent months really herald a new reform era. But on China’s Internet, an outpouring of support for Wen followed quickly after bilingual Chinese-English transcripts of the interview began appearing. “If this is real, and if it’s needed, I’ll give my life, too,” wrote “Andrianme” on Sina Weibo. “The three great men of the last century: Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping,” read a post that had earned more than 11,000 ‘recommend’ clicks on the Phoenix TV site as of this writing. “If Premier Wen can really push through political reform, he’ll be the first great man of the new century.” Information about the interview on the Chinese Internet appears to come almost exclusively from Phoenix TV, blogs and micro-blogging services like Sina Weibo. News portals in China are running a commentary on the interview from the official Liberation Daily newspaper that manages not to quote Wen at all, focusing instead on the differences in Zakaria’s questions from 2008 and 2010. The irony of Wen’s statements on freedom and censorship being censored in official media was not lost on Chinese observers. “A lot of Chinese people don’t know their premier has been harmonized,” prominent Beijing University Internet researcher Hu Yong wrote on Twitter, using the Chinese euphemism for censorship. “Wen Jiabao’s comments about political reform being censored at least tells us one thing: In front of the big wall, everyone is equal.” Others, like ‘Idle Notes,’ responded to the news blockage with anger: “The entire world gets to hear our premier speak and our own media doesn’t report it? Whatever you refuse to report, I’ll just post. [Expletive] you propagandists for the Imperial Court!” While the vast majority of the commentary on Wen’s interview—or what little of it people in China saw—was adulatory, some remained skeptical of the premier’s ability to make good on his rhetoric. “Let’s not be too naïve here. Who stands to lose the most from political reform?” Sina user ‘Big Uncle 98’ wrote in thinly veiled reference to leaders in Beijing. “Do you think they’ll dig their own graves?… Do you think they’re not afraid they’ll eventually be held to account?” A post by ‘Own Worst Enemy,’ one of the most popular on Sina Weibo, may have put it best: “It’s not easy being Premier.” – Josh Chin. Follow him on Twitter@ch_infamous

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China blanks Nobel Peace prize searches
By Steven Jiang, CNN
October 8, 2010 1:25 p.m. EDT

China blanks Nobel Peace prize searches - CNN.com

Beijing, China (CNN) -- With news media across the globe reacting to this year's Nobel Peace Prize announcement, authorities in the winner's homeland are racing to delete his name from all public domains.

Type "Liu Xiaobo" -- or "Nobel Peace Prize," for that matter -- in search engines in China and hit return, you get a blaring error page.

It's the same for the country's increasingly popular micro-blogging sites. "Nobel Prize" was the top-trending topic until the authorities acted to remove all mentions of the award.

Propaganda officials have also pulled the plug on international broadcasters -- including CNN -- whenever stories about Liu air.

Text-messaging on mobile phones is not immune from censors, either. A Shanghai-based netizen, @littley, tweeted his unfortunate experience: "My SIM card just got de-activated, turning my iPhone to an iPod touch after I texted my dad about Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize."

For most ordinary Chinese, the only glimpse of the story came when an anchor read a short statement from the foreign ministry on state TV, blasting the Norwegian Nobel committee's choice of an imprisoned Chinese dissident for the prize "a blasphemy."
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Chinese news consumers are no strangers to such blackouts.

The Chinese government, in its effort to control the flow of information, has long blocked some of the world's top social networking sites - including Facebook, Youtube and most overseas-based blogging services.

Disagreements over Internet censorship led to a war of words between Beijing and Google early this year, leading the search engine giant to redirect its Chinese services to Hong Kong.

Frustrated netizens have dubbed the state's extensive Internet filtering system the "Great Firewall of China," which is said to employ the world's biggest cyber police force to monitor the world's biggest online population of more than 400 million people.

An increasing number of mostly young, tech-savvy users, however, have learned to rely on proxy servers to circumvent the censors and log on to banned sites like Twitter, where the mood was ecstatic Friday night.

"We finally have our own Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi," exclaimed @xieyi64.

"How come I feel today is the real National Day?" tweeted @joeliang, referring to the just-ended week-long holiday marking the 61st anniversary of the People's Republic.

Echoing their sentiment, many Twitterers -- based in China according to their profiles -- admitted they have cried in joy upon hearing the news.

Others expressed admiration for the Norwegian Nobel committee for its decision despite Beijing's stern public warning against it.

"Thanks for giving China a glimmer of hope," tweeted @Frankus21, while many more said they paid their tribute to the Scandinavian nation by eating a celebratory dinner featuring salmon, arguably Norway's most famous food.

With the news blackout there was also little criticism online of the Nobel award.

But some of the online enthusiasm has even spilled into the real world. A witness told CNN a small group of people gathered at Temple of Earth Park in Beijing to celebrate Liu's winning, only to be quickly dispersed by local police.

All the excitement aside, Chinese Internet users don't see their government loosening its grip on the media - old or new - anytime soon. They do hope, however, that their collective voice online will help push for Liu's early release.

Liu's wife, speaking to CNN after the announcement, certainly counts on these messengers to spread her husband's story.

"People who want to find out the news will be able to do so," Liu Xia told CNN under the watchful eyes of police in her apartment, when asked about China's censoring of the story.

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"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

I was actually kind of hesitant about posting mine because news reports like this from Western sources always presume that China is something like West Germany and what sensible person wouldn't be a pro-democracy activist?

In fact 99.9% of people don't care. They're a little irritated when their searches get blocked, and get annoyed when the cops are too heavy-handed (just like us, as it happens), but that's all.

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Standard disclaimer: the disgusting statements contained in this post are the views of the poster, and unless specified do not represent the views of the moderators or the site's owners.