China: Renewed Restrictions Send Online Chill

Weiyu Li

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/04/china-renewed-restrictions-send-online-chill

            The Chinese government further tightens control on their citizen as expected. I don’t think Chinese people should expect the communist government to back down any time soon. The government has to restrict anonymous speech to allow it to maintain in power. However, it’s not such a big deal because even in country like the USA, nothing can be truly anonymous on the internet. Agencies like CIA or FBI can track you down one way or another. I believe the law is a wrong step for the Chinese Government. The reason is quite simple; this new law only makes the public trust the government less. The government already limits public protest and radical reforms. One thing I found funny is how the article cites China’s constitution, pretty much everyone in china knows that it’s a joke and we don’t have any rights. The government also censors a lot of news and states media can be quite corrupt like that the government. When I was back in Beijing over the summer, my cousin and I walked past about 300 people surrounding a bus and heard them chanting some slogan over and over again. From what we gathered, it seemed like the bus hit someone and people were outraged so they surrounded the bus. The whole road was blocked and cars couldn’t pass through. I left before the police came because that’s usually the smartest thing to do, as Sun Tzu says “If All Else Fails Retreat”.  I asked my aunt later on if it would be on any of the news tonight since she worked for XinHua, the state media agency. She said no, news like that is always censored and won’t make it. I was a bit suppressed because the situation wasn’t really even antigovernment; it was just angry mob mad against the transportation system. Still some protests do make the news; I remember the protest against Japanese government being on the state media.  It was a good plan for the communist government to divert its attention from domestic problems to foreign problems. The Chinese government has always used state media as a way to divert attention from domestic problems to foreign problems, usually from Japan. Of course, the Japanese Government is also usually to blame for provoking neighbor countries, but the state media always exaggerate the events.  The way news work in China is quite sad, and the internet micro blogs are usually now the best way to get a lot of news that won’t make it on state media. However, with the new law, we might see less news coming out of the internet since the people who post it will be in risk of getting arrested.