International Law

Kristof Goes Online in China

By Stan

Kinda surprised me reading Kristof’s latest China column in the New York Times. His recent stuff has been very heavy into the whole Darfur-China connection, some criticism centered around the Olympics, etc. Frankly I tuned out after a while — the press treatment of China was becoming so heavy over the last couple of months that I got bummed out.

This was a different tone entirely:

Chinese live far freer lives now than when I lived in Beijing in the 1980s and ’90s. Ordinary citizens can now easily travel abroad, choose their own housing and jobs, and move to whatever Chinese city they want to.

Then there is the Internet.

Kristof details his repeated attempts to post inflammatory statements on BBSs and blogs over here to see what made it onto the Net, how long it stayed posted, and generally how aggressive the censors were being.

The results were not shocking: you can get away with a great deal of criticism these days, even against specific government policy. Sure, there are some sacred cows that are still out there, but on the whole, liberalization has proceeded for a variety of reasons.

I’m happy to see this out there in the mainstream press. My only question is whether Kristof’s conclusions, which I believe are absolutely correct, will be taken up by others and accepted for the facts they are. Alternatively, the caricatures of life in China will remain in the West, something that the Beijing Olympics was supposed to help overcome.

Full post as published by China Hearsay on August 28, 2008 (boomark / email).