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December 11th, 2006

China: A Giant Power or Not?

Frank Dai · 00:25 · East Asia

China used to be one of the mightiest empires and oldest civilizations in the world in human history, but its modern history, starting from the middle of 19th century, was full of disgrace, disorder and chaos as perceived by Chinese people, who has aspired to revive its historical glory in decades of efforts. Only with economical boom during recent years, which was built upon a huge yet cheap labor market, did China manage to become an influential force in international playing ground. However does it mean that it is the Renaissance of Chinese Culture, consequently as a result of economical growth? Given the prevailing attitude of overheating nationalism and outspoken patriotism among Chinese people, is the resurgence of powerful Middle Kingdom a down-to-earth course we should take, or only a daydreaming public illusion?

Obviously the answer would be blowing in the wind since the changing of China is so rapidly that even the most genuine effort to foresee its future seems to be like fortune telling. Each interest group gave their version of prediction, only making the matter more confusing. Indeed no one dare to say what China is going to be exactly in next 20 or 30 years. All that we can be sure is that, this generation of Chinese, grown up in market-oriented value without threat from hunger and war, truly wished their country to be more powerful, peaceful and influential.

Recently a documentary series was aired by China Central Television, the official TV network in China, named “The Rise of Giant Power“(”大国崛起”), which has been a key subject for discussion on the Internet and traditional media alike. The 12-episode documentary started its narration from the 15th century when the Age of Discovery brought prosperity to Spain and ended with the rising of latest modern empire: United States. With up-to-date techniques like interviews, reconstruction of historical scene and computer-generated special effect, it tried to teach China and its people, a rising nation-state, on how to learn from the experiences of has-been giants on the world. (See excerpt video here)

For those liberal-minded people, who stick to the principle that the government should take the benefits of its citizens as top priority, the true and wholehearted wishes for Great China should not be manipulated by the government as an excuse to ignore basic and fundamental rights of its people. Lianyue, one of the most popular bloggers in China, wrote a post titled “It Should be the Rising of Giant Citizen Instead“:

无论大国小国，国民的幸福感受是第一位的，把国民压到最小，把国家放到最大，这种斯巴达式帝国，早就证明了是泥足巨人，行之不远。大国与小国并不重要，重要是要有大国民：他们的幸福是放在第一位的；他们不幸福了，就有资格抱怨、不满、用选举把做不好的人换下来。也正是因为这点，最大多数人的最大多数幸福，才是一个政府及一个国家的最终追求。不幸福的人多了，你连存在的合法性都会受到质疑。

The happiness of its citizens is the top priority of the government, whether it is a big or small country. It should be a Sparta country that reduce its citizen's happiness to minimal and amplify the interest of state to maximum, which has already be proved to be fragile and would not develop further. It doesn't matter for being a Giant Nation; Instead it is important to have Giant Citizens, whose happiness should be considered first. If they are unhappy and unsatisfied, they are entitled to complain, resent and substitute those who are no longer fitting in position with their votes. The happiness of vast majority of people is the ultimate goal the government should pursue. Your legitimacy would be even questioned when there are too many unhappy people.

(more…)

2 comments · »»

September 8th, 2006

China: Press, In Contrast

Frank Dai · 10:00 · East Asia

In the recently high-profiled case of First Financial Daily vs Foxconn, over the former's controversial news report on the latter's alleged Apple Ipod's sweatshop. The dramatical end to the case, in which the two issued a joint statement focussing on mutual understanding and “building harmonious society,” was generally considered as an example of how the press in China, theoretically independent and outspoken, was intimidated and compromised in the face of powerful corporation.

Is our press, including websites, newspapers and TV networks, only a timid coward, waiting for instruction and orders from the government on what and how to report? When national sensation s, celebrities gossip and overheated patriotism mix together, stirring up the “journalist's instinct”, that's another story. The press will never hesitate a minute to follow up such a story without any authorization from the authorities. The reasons? The press simply wants to make money and the readers want that story.

The latest victim of such press war is Meng Guangmei, a TV host and former model. The strange point is that the press, stained with the habits of its American colleagues, have named this incident “Toiletgate“. Meng appeared on a Taiwan TV network talk show and commented on her experience in Mainland China, mentioning some toilets near Tiananmen Square where she saw a hundred pale “asses”. ( video here) Sun Bin has a nice and insightful post about this.

The Chinese Internet is always replete with uproar, perplexing sentiments and hullabaloo, especially on the forums and blogs, given the overwhelming popularity of internet man-hunter effort. Many people feel that the spreading of online self-publishing technologies and its anonymous nature makes such phenomenon possible. But as the esteemed Chinese IT blogger Keso said, the press play an infamous role in inciting overheated nationalism and the social group dubbed as “Angry Youth“, with his latest blog post titled “Angry Youth, Made In China “.

[in translation]

我一直认为，民原本不暴，青原本不愤，但架不住媒体总喜欢耸人听闻，被媒体一忽悠，民就成了”暴民”，青就成了”愤青”。这一点在网络上表现得尤其明显，凡涉及民族主义、道德宣判等主题，往往很容易发展成”网络暴民”事件，而在这些事件背后，总能看到这些媒体的不光彩的影子。他们用肮脏的手，操纵着所谓的 “民意”

I always think that the people are not mobs and the youths are not angry. But as the media weigh in, with their usual exaggeration aimed at deliberately creating a sensation, the people become mobs and the youths became angry. This can be obviously reflected on the Internet, especially when the topic involves nationalism and moral judgement, which can easily become an “Internet mob” incident. The dishonored shadow of the press can be always found behind the curtain. They use their filthy hands to manipulate the so-called “public opinion”

最新事件的主角是孟广美，一名来自台湾的普通的电视节目主持人，几乎成为这种”民意”的又一个牺牲品。先是一家地方小报的”首席记者”，在一番断章取义、添油加醋之后，借所谓的”嘲笑内地人”这个民愤极大的话题，制造仇恨，煽动民意，发出第一份民族主义”追杀令”。然后经由门户网站别有用心的引导，地方小报立刻就拥有了全国影响力，追杀行为迅速演变成一场流氓和暴徒的狂欢

The latest episode is about Meng Guangmei, an ordinary Taiwan TV host, who almost would be the victim of such “public opinion”. First, there is one leading report of a local tabloid, with garbled and inflaming stories seeking to take advantage of the controversial topic of ” sneering at the Mandarin people” to incite hatred and resentment. It also issued a national fatwa, which was maliciously directed by some major websites and thus turned into the carnival of mobs and vagabonds, while the tabloid has gained national influence overnight.

媒体们不敢去监督政府，也不敢去监督企业，所以在这些祖宗面前，他们一会儿当儿子，一会儿装孙子，可一旦他们遇到类似赵薇、孟广美这样的弱女子，就立刻觉得自个儿成了老子。他们一而再再而三地在一些弱势的个体身上，施展他们无处施展的淫威，展示他们自以为是的道德和情操。而他们手中最好的武器，就是民族主义。民族主义常常成为这些媒体豢养的家犬，召之即来，挥之即去，屡试不爽。

The press dare not to be the watchdog against the government and companies. They sometimes act as timid sons and well-behaved grandsons of these “ancestors”. When encountering weak women like Meng Guangmei and Zhao Wei, they instantly feel that they are the fathers. They exert their primitive evil influence on these weak groups time and again, and their best weapon i s nationalism. It's a vicious dog fed by the press, waiting for the master's order.

2 comments · »»

August 17th, 2006

China:”I am not interested in politics; I am only interested in making money”

Frank Dai · 20:35 · East Asia

Have you ever heard of the term “Great Firewall” or “GFW” for short? Whom to blame when you have encountered the annoying message “Page Not Found” frequently seen when browsing the Internet in China? An email has been circulating the web recently, calling Chinese netizens to boycott Google, which, the email author claims, censors and blocks sensitive information about “Diaoyutai Island”, or Senkaku Islands, a piece of disputed territory between China and Japan. ESWN has a nice story about this with full English translation of the email.

Many veteran Internet surfers in China, acquainted with Internet blocking scheme, would probably in the first instant identify this message as false accusation and rebuke against Google, or even malicious promotional strategy used by Google's competitors, given the fierce competition in China's search engine market, because it's not Google but the the Great Firewallbuilt by the government that scans, monitors and resets the Internet connection when particular inquiries trigger off its alert.

A heated discussion is running on IdeasFactoryChina(reg required), a mailist maintained by SocialBrain Foundation(disclosure: the author is one member of the non-profit organization and it also hosts GVO Chinese Translation Project), concerning how to “promote” the GFW term and made it popular, which can be seen as the pre-condition in order to defeat it. The initial email by the ID “Aether”(reg required):

各位，被封闭的是我们，我们被一个叫做GreatFirewall的电子长城档在我们面前，这就是真相….
不需要吼叫，不需要鲜血，不需要杀戮，所需要的，只是我们冷静而沉着地说出自己的声音…
Google不能搜索，是的，因为有一个金盾工程掐着它的脖子，
我们所有的声音都会被它掩盖，只能听到它想要我们听到的声音…

Folks, it is us who has been sealed off the world. We are blocked by a digital Greatwall called Great Firewall. That is the truth….

No need for outcry. No need for blood. No need for killing. All we need to do is to utter our voices calmly and placidly……

Google cannot be searched. Yes, that's because a project called Golden Shield pinched Google's neck. It covers all our voices and lets through only what it wants to hear…..

Such a letter of appeal and calling is not so unusual in China’s blogosphere, a hot spot for gossip and hullabaloo. But the comments followed are really interesting, which can probably stand for the opinion of the majority of mass netizens toward censorship issue:

Comments by Yuk Hui (reg required) :

在國外有許多機構都在關注中國的互聯網政策，但是在國內，大部分人都無動於衷，有些是不知道，有些是無所謂，他們對我說「沒有甚麼了不起，這是中國自己的事，我們都見慣了」…. 許多中國網民(何止是網民？)都有狂熱的「愛國精神」或「民族主義」，不知道知識的自由，甚至自由本身的價值，這常常使我難過

Many oversea institutions are paying attention to Internet policy in China. But domestically most people are indifferent toward it. Some of them are ignorant of it and some just don't care about it. They said to me:”It doesn't matter. It's China's own business. We've gotten used to it”….Many netizens(not limited to netizens?) have a fever for patriotism and nationalism, without knowing the freedom for acquiring knowledge and even the value for freedom itself. It upsets me.

Comments by Zola(reg required):

我困惑的是：GFW里的被屏蔽关键词的选择是否只是个人意志的选择？还是系统性的意识形态的导向？我们知道，在加密措施花样百出和巨大的信息流量的互联网上，GFW对国家安全毫无帮助，唯一有帮助的是，禁止大多数普通网民了解某些事的假相或真相.

I was bewildered: Are the censored key words in GFW the choice of personal will or systematical tendency of ideology? We have known that traffic on the Internet is so huge and there are so many ways to encrypt information, GFW has nothing useful to do with national security. The only benefit of it is to prevent majority of average netizens knowing the true or false images of some stories.

Comments by CWHung(reg required):

别忘了，GCD不是多米诺，有很多事情，不是普通百姓可以看到的。另外，我对政治不感兴趣，我只对赚钱有兴趣，所以客观的提醒一句，即便是所谓有益的“努力”也可能参杂着“别有用心“，好自为之

Don't forget, the Communist Party of China isn't made of Domino tiles. Many things can not be seen by ordinary people. In addition, I am not interested in politics; I am only interested in making money. So just a reminder: even the so-called goodwill effort might be mixed with “evil intentions”. Take care.

我选的是商业的路，或许以后你们其中有一些能成为中国富强的英雄，但是到目前为止，你们还是一点能力都没有，不是么？做好自己可以做到的事，可以一起来讨论经验以及从实际出发去做未来的规划，而不是空摆着理想主义来纸上谈兵。如果不理解我所说的话，那就请你有时间的话，回答我一些很简单的问题，你目前工作是什么？替别人做过些什么有益的事情？对于互联网目前的状况，你有过些什么努力？对于你不满意的社会现状，你尽过些什么责任？

I've chosen the way of doing business. Maybe one of yours can be the heroes of prosperous China in the future, but until now you have no abilities, right? Do something that you are able to do, then you can come to discuss some experiences and practical blueprint for the future, instead of empty talks of idealism. If you fail to understand what I've said, please answer me a few questions if you have time: What's your job now? Have you done anything useful for others？Have you made any efforts concerned with current situation on the Internet? Have you performed your responsibilities for the unsatisfactory society?

我不关心政治，并不代表我不闻不问，只是我知道以我个人能力和活动的范围，并不能去改变什么，所以我能做的，仅仅是做好自己的事情，在国际的商业往来中努力给中国人塑造尊严，给国内不少怀才不遇的人才创造更好的事业环境，用赚来的钱投入国内的慈善事业。我选的是这条路，你呢？朋友。

The fact that I am not interested in politics doesn't mean that I am indifferent toward it. I just know that for my personal capabilities and scope of my activities I can't change much. All I can do is just to take care of my own things and try to build esteem of Chinese in business and create a better environment for the talented persons to do business. Then I will invest my money in charity. That 's the way I choose, what about you, my friends?

4 comments · »»

June 29th, 2006

China: Crazy Football Commentator

Frank Dai · 08:17 · East Asia

Huang Jianxiang , one of the most popular football commentators of China Central Television, or CCTV, has been in the center of a controversy recently seen in both the mainstream media and the blogosphere, for his overexcited comments during a World Cup playoff game, in which Italy won a 1-0 margin victory against Australia with a penalty kick in the last minute.

In the overtime of the match, when the presiding referee pointed to the pitch for the penalty kick, Huang's voice and tone suddenly became excited. His comments showed preference to Italy over Australia and used strong and emotional phrases like “Long Live Italy” and “Let Them (Australia) Get Lost.” Translation of his comments can be found here, the video here and audio recording here [zh].

(more…)

3 comments · »»

June 10th, 2006

China: Google's China Problem

Frank Dai · 08:54 · East Asia

Google, the largest searching engine service in the world, has become under fire for its incompetence for providing unstable services to Chinese customers, due to the intensified online censorship, or Great Firewall of China, around the 17th anniversary of Tiananmen Massacre.

Today, as Julien Pain, Chief of Reporters Without Borders, or RSF Internet Freedom desk pointed out that Google,after two weeks of accessing difficulty, has been back to normal. However it's inaccurate to call it a blockade, since Internet users in China retrieving Google's US-Hosted Chinese version will get different results at different time and area. Rather it can be called as “disrupted connection“, as Financial Times called.

Google has offered its censored version at Google.cn, a China-hosted service registered at the Chinese government, which received much criticism from human right groups and blogosphere when launched in January. At the same time it provides option of uncensored version, to which it would redirect when typing url “www.google.com” in China. Google.cn has been available for past two weeks. However, it was estimated that only 1% of users in China applied Google.cn as their searching choice for Google service.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said that they might compromise their principle, the famous “Don't Be Evil” slogan, for entering the Chinese market. Google has been evaluating whether their arrangement is identical with its company's policy and principles, while considering the possibility of retreating from China. However Reuters has reported that Google is staying in China.

On June 8th, spokesman for Foreign Ministry of China Liu Jianchao said on a routine press conference:”Chinese government welcomes companies like Google who want to operate in China's information area, but all trade and business should be conducted in comply with laws and regulations. We hope that these companies would obey Chinese law when developing business in China”. Keso, one of leading Chinese IT evangelist blogger said on his blog:

[In translation]
Indeed Liu Jianchao admitted that “it was us(Chinese government) who block Google because they did not obey the law”. But the spokesman will never told the foreigners that which law that Google has violated and which law the blockade is performed according to. The foreigners want explicit clauses in the law for them to do business, but here in China, many things are unspeakable like Zen.

Andrew Lih explained Google's position from his view. He also notices some incoherent media reports explainning Sergey Brin's position. He thought that the reason that Google's much criticized because they hold high moral standard for their business conduct.

Some Chinese blogger even resort to virtual voodoo, for they fail to access Google. keepwalking have made such one (tipped by Rebecca). Herock Xia blamed that Google Chinese official blog's failure to discuss this topic.

2 comments · »»

June 4th, 2006

China: June 4th:Silence, Memorial and Blogger's Saying

Frank Dai · 08:12 · East Asia

Today it's June 4th, the 17th anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre, which marked the end of student democracy movement in Beijing and nationwide lasting from March to June, 1989. The communist party of China still did not recognize this mass incident as peaceful protest of students, who used demonstration and hunger strike to demand democracy and removal of corrupted officials.

Under the party propaganda policies, no commemoration of the movement was allowed in public places and the newspapers and TV networks passed the day wthout any even implied mention of it. Like the popular columnist and blogger Lianyue once has wrote when Google has entered Chinese market:”We(Google) guarantee: The day after Jun3th must be Jun5th”, the state-controlled media have just pretended that the event never happened 17 years ago, identical with the official history book's negligible claim of the movement as “a political incident in the spring and summer of 1989″.

Silence did not only existed in the media outlets but also on Internet. The major websites are mute as much as their mainstream media counterparts. While many foreign media will run their stories of civil right groups, dissidents sayings and request of groups like Tiananmen Mother, who demand compensation and recognition of people who sacrifice their lives in the event, a basic embarrassing fact is that the government will tighten the control of information online and offline, with blocking access to witnesses and elevation of Internet blocking alike.

Even Google, who compromise to offered its Chinese search engine services in censored and uncensored version simultaneously are no exception from the powerful censor. Many areas in mainland China have reported failures to connect to Google in the past few days, while the censored and China-hosted Google.cn is still available. Andrew Lih has blogged a stories about it. Shizhao also warned that people be careful using Google Desktop, since the application robots will crawl sensitive news from websites like BBC, causing the Great Firewall to trigger off.

Fortunately, the decentralized nature of Internet means such content can't be removed and ignored entirely. Andrea of T-Salon remind us that the del.icio.us tag “8964″ is once again active, aggregating reflections and thoughts from the Internet,especially the blogosphere. The scanning copy of Hong Kong newspaper in June 4th 1989 can be found on Flickr and video on YouTube. It's like what XiaoQiang of China Digital Times, a participant of that event told in a recent interview that “Internet Keeps Tiananmen Spirit Alive”

Keepwalking shot photos of Tiananmen Square and post it on his blog titled “Picture without Words: Today, Square”: peaceful and crowded, not with anguish students but the cheerful and curious tourists, who may not even heard about the so-called June 4th Massacre, for many of them were born after the event and the state prohibt public discussion of the incident. Compared with the now famous image of Tank Man, who poised in front a row of armed tanks and block them to advance on the street in 1989, a true repersentatives of the spirits of the protesters, today's square is so quiet as usual as if nobody even remember, not mention to struggle for it.

Zheng, one of the earliest Chinese blogger, wrote today on his blog titled “17 Years”:

[In translation]
After the 17 years, the generation has grown up to adult.
However the ringing cry, warm blood and zealous yearning of them has not grown to be a self-organized and self-adapted environment of democracy, like the tiny seeds growing into green and vast fores
t…..
The thing needed to magnify is the voice, the continuity not the boring and faded mourning and commemoration year after year.
History won't repeat. New questions are ahead in front of us, and it's these news question that make the voice resurrect.

SideKick, a Hong Kong blogger, showed her “8964″ special watch and change her blog's appearance in total black for “indirect memorandum”. In another post she edits a playlist of songs to commorate the anniversary . Every year Hong Kong will hold an unofficial memorial party to pay tribute to those who died on the street 17 years ago and HiRadio has many resources for that party.

20 comments · »»

May 15th, 2006

China: New political campaign shows sarcasm is alive and well

Frank Dai · 16:23 ·

A strange custom of every Communist Party of China leader is for them to come up with their own theory or “ism”. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping had their own respective variations of Socialist theory. Jiang Zemin has his Three Represents. And what about the current Chinese president Hu Jintao? His, just released earlier this year, is often translated as the Eight Dos and Don'ts, or ‘Eight Honors and Eight Shames,' and emphasizes the moral education of citizens—particularly the young generation—with the basis of conventional moral values like diligence and patriotism. The weirdest part of this theory is that all the Dos and Don'ts are nothing more than common sense and seem unworthy of the overwhelming propaganda in recent days:

以热爱祖国为荣、以危害祖国为耻，
以服务人民为荣、以背离人民为耻，
以崇尚科学为荣、以愚昧无知为耻，
以辛勤劳动为荣、以好逸恶劳为耻，
以团结互助为荣、以损人利己为耻，
以诚实守信为荣、以见利忘义为耻，
以遵纪守法为荣、以违法乱纪为耻，
以艰苦奋斗为荣、以骄奢淫逸为耻。

Love the motherland, do not harm it
Serve, don't disserve the people
Uphold science, don't be ignorant and unenlightened
Work hard, don't be lazy
Be united and help each other, don't benefit at the expense of others
Be honest, not profit-mongering
Be disciplined and law-abiding, not chaotic and lawless
Know plain living and hard struggle, do not wallow in luxuries.

(more…)

1 comment · »»

May 9th, 2006

Access to MSN Spaces in China

Frank Dai · 11:49 · East Asia

Many people have said that their MSN Space blog is inaccessible or experiences diffculties in connection, including Nina Wu, sister of detained blogger and Global Voices colleague Hao Wu, with many MSN bloggers confirming the problem (1,2).

According to this article, the inaccessiblity of MSN Space lies in Live.com. Mircosoft change its .NET Passport login process into Live.com, this required Chinese users to redirect to live.com to sign in their credentials and Live.com is probably blocked in China. So all the MSN related websites have been inaccessible during recent weeks.

This post also provides some other means to login and continue use MSN sites without running a proxy as listed below:

using https protocol: click here and login
using the original .NET Passport service: click here and using Messenger 7.0 version to access Hotmail and MSN Space

Tests show two things: first, after using above techniques to access them, MSN and Hotmail services are returning to normal; second, Live.com is only accessible with a proxy like that of Tor.

Several days before the block stopped for an interval but resumed just within few days. It's still unclear whether this problem is due to outage of servers of Microsoft's China Branch. With the recent visit by President Hu Jintao to Microsoft and Bill Gates the block seem quite unreasonable. No confirmation from Microsoft is available at present.

1 comment · »»

May 4th, 2006

East Asia

Today, as the technorati blog pointed out that in its Top 100, Chinese Blogger Xujinglei became NO1 in the chart. It just followed a newly released report from Technorati which claimed that Chinese is the thrid biggest language in the global blogosphere, with explosion of non English blogs. Here is the screenshot.

plus. Technorati is blocked again in Mainland China after few days of unblocking, according to Danwei.org.

April 20th, 2006

What is self-censorship?

Frank Dai · 07:07 · East Asia

Many people think that in China the state media is censoring content online and offline vigorously under government order. However it's not always true since many of the censorship works are not done by the government officials but self-censored. Followed is a translation of recent blog post by Zhao Maoyu at the renowned Chinese blog “Mindmeters“, titled “Self-Castration Resulted from Self-Fear“, explaining the self-censorship policy at China Central Television, CCTV, the national and official TV media.

[In Translation]
Now all the people said the programs at Hunan TV (A provincial level TV) is much better than CCTV. The reasons behind it can be found at Wangxiaofeng's Blog. CCTV does not only produce rubbish programs but also attack its competitors with third-rated techniques. When I was home this year, my sister told me that CCTV did not attack other competitors because of fears. She did not want to tell me the real reasons.

I don't know whether anyone still remembers the “Red Horizon” soiree that is not released to the public. I think that anyone who have seen this program, as long as he did not bear extreme prejudice, should recognize that CCTV is not short of good producers and talented performance. I even dissert that the quality of this program exceeds all Hunan TV's programs. But such programs will not have a chance of getting to the public. What we saw on CCTV is only boring, lack of humor and full of philistinism. Indeed CCTV is not an institution of entertainment but of bureaucracy and politics.

All the staff at the Chinese bureaucratical institutions tend to think one thing first before they did anything else: how their bosses will consider? They were always trying to figure out the bottom line of their boss because they worried about exceeding the limit of tolerance. Moreover, the bottom line is often underestimated by these staff. To put more bluntly, they scared themselves. Let's look at an example how the people at CCTV works: If we set the tolerance rate at 10 for President Hu, the rate for the Ministry of Propaganda would be degraded to 9; 8 for the Ministry of Broadcasting and 7 or 6 for the officials at CCTV. When comes to the program producers it would be a miracle if the rate stays at 2 or 3. How can a TV program be excellent with such bottom line principles?

Also take the recently controversial TV series “Shiliang the General” for example. Even the stupids can know that this series is specially prepared for the political situation in Taiwan Strait. Some people post on BBS to vote on the “most disgusting lines” in this series, and the champion goes to this one: “One girl who would be killed by the Qing soldier soon said “”compare with the days of living with separation from the mainland China, I would rather die“.

I believed that even the President Hu and other people from the propaganda machine would not like this line. But why did the screenplay writer think that “the bosses” need such a line? I think it is the result of underestimating the bottom line of the bosses that lead to wrong conclusion. From the up to down, the fear is magnified and the bottom line is degraded to almost ground zero. The bosses just hope to forbid flirting but when it goes down to the average citizens, no options other than castration would be available.

A most recent case of self-castration and self-fear can be well illustrated in the news that the deeds done by the major websites to comply with the “Civilized Internet” policy:

QianLong: 3 suspected forums were closed down with 800 articles, 3174 pictures and 134 posts deleted.

Sina: 15 forums and 8 columns closed, totally of 134015 posts, including 71016 unhealthy posts.

Sohu: 11 pages and forums shut down. In addition it will select 10 or 20 people as Sohu's “Civilized Internet Supervisors”.

Baidu: Delete and block of illegal pictures and texts.

Zhongsou: Initiative to stop BBS searching and forum services to clean content. 20 forums are eliminated with about 10000 posts and 20000 links.

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