Chinese Official Vows to "Purify" the Net

Sleeping Kirby writes to tell us China's Communist party leader, Hu Jintao today announced the intent to leverage the economic potential of the web while seeking to "purify the internet environment". He proposes to do this by maintaining "the initiative in opinion" on the internet and to "'raise the level guidance on the internet," thus civilizing and purifying the internet environment.

Bolshevism vs. Fascism

[P(0)(!P(k)+P(k+1))]

From TFA:

Hu stressed the need to exploit the net's possibilities, while keeping a tight grip. “Ensure that one hand grasps development while one hand grasps administration,” he concluded.

It's still why I think Bolshevism* and its sequelae are more insidious than fascism: sure, the fascists will shoot you if you agitate against them; but the Bolshevik state would prevent you from agitating in the first place by limiting the set of stimuli that comprise your world.

Reminds me a great deal, actually, of that old Semitic myth about a certain garden and tree of knowledge; whose premise was: fragile and jealous power depends upon the ignorance of its subjugates.

The ignorance of subjugates will always be a Bolshevik, and not a fascist, end.

_____________
* Or Marxism, etc.

At least China is honest in intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

unlike USA with their "think of the children" "piracy", "PAC" excuse

truth ? you can't handle the truth !

From the good-luck-with-that dept.

[Short Circuit]

You might think that the average person wouldn't stand for it. But I recall someone once saying the "average person" is 5' tall, female, and Chinese.

While China may only house 15-20% of the world's population, that's still a huge fraction. That would be one hell of an astroturf.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!!

[teutonic_leech]

Yeah, just what we needed - officials of a country with a long track record in crimes against humanity bent on 'cleaning up the Internet'.

Re:Bolshevism vs. Fascism

[P(0)(!P(k)+P(k+1))]

By that notion I guess we are living under and Bolshevik revolution in the US right now. . . .

Exactly; I think the case for Bolshevism is stronger than the case for fascism; but “fascism” has been, since WWII, a rhetorically charged word to drum up cheap interest.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Is the Chinese Constitution a sham?

[voice_of_all_reason]

See, the Founding Fathers of the US thought of this and wrote up the Constitution to say "This is what the Government CAN do" (Articles) and "This is what they CANNOT do" (Amendments). The last amendment states that any other rights are left to the states to decide, and then reserved by the people.

All of your bolded words (especially "unlawful", used multiple times) can be interpreted by Chinese courts to mean anything, because the Chinese Constitution purposefully spells out rights (grants them) as opposed to saying they are self-evident.

It's surely not unique in Chinese history

[DuBois]

The first Chin Emperor (Qin in modern romanization) [royalty.nu], ZHENG Ying (259-210BC), gave his Dynasty's name to the entire country of China. He burned all the books in the country and banned scholarly discussion of history. Sounds a lot like the current Emperor is just doing what a Chinese Emperor normally does. And that might explain why the Chinese people, whose sense of history extends far further back than most Westerners', tolerate his continued rule. A sense of "unity" for all of China comes from the Emperor. See the modern movie "Hero" for one take on this facet of Chinese culture.

He also changed his name to Shi Huangdi, meaning "First August God". This is certainly nothing that the current Emperor would ever deign to do.

Re:They're going to what?

[sgt_doom]

The funny thing is (funny, that is, to us thinking people, User 956) that they have all the money they need to do this.

After all, the Bush Administration continuously borrows extraordinary sums from the Chinese government to buy war materiel from the Chinese Red Army-owned factories (along with Wall Mart and Sam's Club, and various other retailers [Nordstrom, The Gap, etc.]) for the occupation of Iraq (and no doubt, the soon-to-be nuclear strike on Iran!). Perhaps not coincidentally, the newest foreign affairs advisor to Bush/Cheney is Henry Kissinger, a paid registered foreign agent to the government of China for many, many years (along with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).

Now...I suppose all those "coincidence theorists" out there would have a logical answer for this.......

Re:Is the Chinese Constitution a sham?

[RAMMS+EIN]

``For all the bitching about the United States you see on Slashdot, at least our government actually has to try to subvert the Constitution, and we have ways of fighting back.''

But only terrorists fight the US government!

``The US Constitution doesn't have an "Oh, and everything we promised you you have, you don't have." escape hatch built in.''

But the President does have "constitutional powers" which put him above the law. Well, at least he thinks so and acts like it. Wholesale surveillance of US citizens, while prohibited by the constitution, is ok, because it's in the interest of the state.

Re:Doug in a Dress

[hackingbear]

``This is just a media spin on what china has been doing all along, blocking major portions of the internet off completely from it's own citizens.'' Not sure if you have been to China personally and surfed there at all. While it is true that many sites have been blocked, mostly oversea Chinese sites, majority of the rest are not, including your comments on slashdot.org

Re:Is the Chinese Constitution a sham?

[lxt518052]

Indeed, the real problem in Chinese legal system is not fixing some sentences in the constitution or making more laws to protect the people. It's far more complex than that. In the past two thousand years before the 1911 revolution, no rule-of-law in the modern sense existed in China. The social order was maintained by categorical monarchy power on top, a complex system of beaucrats in the middle and grass-root family ties at the bottom. Although the ROC established in 1911 and the PRC taking its place in 1949 both have had a few versions of constitutions, the spirit of constitution has never managed to get itself cross to the mass and as a result, governments have never really seriously enforced it.

Aware of the situation, generations of ocial elite have been struggling to build up such rule-of-law tradition in China since the late 19th century. But revolutions, civil wars backed by foreign powers, Japanese invasion sanctions during the cold war and communist blunders of pre-Deng Xiaoping era meant the seed had never got a fair chance to grow. Most part of the 20th century saw China in upheaval. If the same situation had happened in 19-century US for comparably long period, what the founding fathers of America envisioned in the US constitution would not have been realized either.

Now it has been almost 30 years since China has had a chance to focus on improving its people's lives. Dreams of generations are gradually coming true, albeit slowly. Everything complex enough takes time to mature, democracy, rule-of-law tradition, etc... they don't just happen.

Re:It's surely not unique in Chinese history

[lxt518052]

I don't think the undertone in Hero could represent the main stream. In fact, the director Zhang Yimou has been widely criticized for whitewashing for a tyrant. The film actually has become a laugh stalk for its ridiculous plot.

As for Qin Shihuang (another name for Shi Huangdi), most of your comment are correct, except that Zheng was his given name and YING was the surname. He certainly was an influential figure and events related to him did change the course of history. But mind you it was two thousand years ago. A lot of equally important (if not more important) events happened afterwards. Simply attributing everything today to a man died more than 2000 years ago is very much over-simplification, if not totally wrong.

Re:Bolshevism vs. Fascism

[whathappenedtomonday]

You are quite right, the link comes very close to 'flamebait' and is meant to provoke thoughts and discussions. What I get is a reference to Wiki (not a very reliable source of info when talking about controversial topics that put the US in a not-so-bright light) and some anon shithead calling me a "lazy, credulous bastard". So what, I don't care about karma and gladly burn some more:

I came across an interesting article about the M3 series, the broadest measure of money supply, which is no longer published by the Federal Reserve. Wondering why that is I found this interview with Ron Paul, a Republican who represents the 14th Congressional district of Texas [capitalspectator.com]. Very interesting read, indeed. Knowing that Iran has plans to move international oil trade away from the dollar, it seems like:

- the Fed tries to disguise inflation and its sources and to play down the deficit

- the almost inevitable conflict with Iran is an attempt to keep the dollar and US economy from collapsing, which is what would eventually happen if oil business was to be based on the euro as Iran intends to do

- a system of deception, propaganda and "fascist" control (by revoking civil rights and establishing "homeland security legislation") is being put in place (or already is), and the goal is to disguise the facts that the US currency and economy are crumbling, the deficit exploding, inflation pauperizing the low-to-middle-income people, the reputation of the country going down the drain and the people being sacrificed in order to maximize corporate winnings and protect those in power (those are corporations, as well, and as many of you know "corporation" comprises the political powers - Halliburton etc...).

And while this happens, I read "Go USA! U.S.A! We rule! Best country in the world!" posts here on /. This country is so seriously screwed, it almost makes you cry. I really do feel sorry for the people, cause they will one day wake up. Hopefully - you said: probably - not in a fascist country, but I have my doubts.