Chinese Blogger Chosen As Head of Investigation 89
Lew Perin writes "China hasn't developed much of a reputation for government transparency. And in Yunnan province, the case of a guy who died in police custody was starting to look like a cover up. But then the provincial government startled everyone by choosing a prominent local blogger to head the official investigation into the death. 'The unorthodox move to make popular bloggers heads of an investigation committee is a tacit admission by the Yunnan government of the power of the internet — especially blogs — in shaping Chinese public opinion. It also belies the widespread suspicion of the official version of Li's death.'"
Skids greased? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Skids greased? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't trust them either, but I also know that I'm in no position to know one way or the other. Everything I "know" about the Chinese government, I heard from someone else.
I read an interview with some journalist -- I can't remember who at the moment, but it's not important -- in which he described the difference between skepticism and cynicism as the difference between "I don't know; I'm going to find out" vs. "I already know; I don't need to find out".
Of course, most Americans (including myself, I assume including you) aren't in a position to "find out". We can watch and wait, but even in the end we'll get information filtered through many hands we can choose to trust or not trust. If the blogger finds evidence that supports the story was being covered up, will we trust the people who say it proves the idea worked or those who say the blogger had an axe to grind? If he finds no evidence, will we trust those who say there was nothing to find, or those who say it proves the whole thing was a stunt? And that's if we ever see any follow-up to this story at all...
So I want to take a skeptical view when any government makes a move like this. It feels like it could be a pubilcity stunt. But I also know that barring a major change in my career and lifestyle, I cannot know for sure who is, or isn't, making an honest effort.
(Note that my above comment is not limited to the Chinese government. There's a definite propaganda spin that can be read from "embedded reporters", too.)
Absent the ability to independently verify, I guess the difference between a cynic and a skeptic is intent. So here's my question for everyone who claims standing to presume the intentions of the Chinese government: If presented with evidence that this was legit, would you hear it or would you dismiss it out of hand?
Re:Skids greased? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm interested enough in China to have learned Mandarin and visited several times.
My impression is that central govt is genuinely trying to implement reforms, particularly in the legal system. I don't think they are interested in human rights but they understand the importance of uncorrupt institutions to prosperity.
However, these reforms are usually stymied by the local corruption they are trying to root out. China is a big place.
This effort with the blogger may well be genuine. It may well come to nothing.
My 2 cents.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Skids greased? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think they are interested in human rights but they understand the importance of uncorrupt institutions to prosperity.
I think you are probably wrong there. For one thing, Communism is, despite what we've all been told over and over, about the rights of common people; go and look it up if you care. They are not the same set of rights that people in the US subscribe to, but "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" was, after all, something drawn up by the UN just after WWII - ie by the US, UK and France, mostly, and consequently it reflects values that are very Eurocentric and very Capitalistic.
Another thing is that people far too often assume that politicians in general are completely void of any sort of idealism and higher principles, which I think is manifestly untrue - even in America. Wasn't the problem with the Bush administration that they were too idealistic - that their belief in their ideology overruled their grasp of reality? A pragmatic leader would never have thrown the country into a war in Iraq or given gigantic tax cuts to the richest in the belief that this would somehow be good for everybody, in spite of what common sense and a hundred years of experience tells us.
In fact, I think politicians in general are more likely to be idealists than the average person. It's just that in the US, their ideology is very often some twisted version of fundamentalist Christianity or Ultra-Capitalism, whereas in China they are more likely to base their ideals on Communism - which is, when you think about it, a version of Humanism. To me, what makes the big difference is whether you believe your ideals are more important than people's lives and reality in general; and as far as I can see, the current Chinese leaders believe more in reality than in ideals. Which is good.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about China, but here in the US, I think politicians are typically sociopaths. The Bush administration didn't do things because of idealism, they did them because of money and power. The war in Iraq may have been idealism in part, but mostly is was a big give-away to military contractors like Halliburton. It's no coincidence that Cheney, the VP, was also the former head of Halliburton, which profited tremendously from the Iraq War. Giving gigantic tax cuts to the rich is just the rich scrat
Re: (Score:2)
The Bush administration didn't do things because of idealism, they did them because of money and power
Well, to me that looks a lot like what certain aspects of American, political ideology is all about - money and power. Just because it isn't noble doesn't mean that it isn't idealism of sorts.
I'm still not sure if Bush was stupid or evil.
Oh, there is no doubt he was stupid, which isn't the same as being unintelligent. Stupidity, to my mind, is what you get when people have learned to avoid learning from new knowledge; and as always with learning, the more intelligent you are, the better you get, so it takes a very intelligent person to become very stup
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't suggesting they were, I was only expressing my opinion, that it makes very little sense, whether in terms of basic fairness or economic reality, to give money to those who need it the least and then hope this will somehow makes the economy stronger and better. Trickle-down economics seems to be part of the Neo-Conservative faith, and according to my definition above a very stupid one, since experience has shown it to be false.
Again, you seem to be a little confused. Lowering taxes on the rich isn'
Re: (Score:2)
Perspective (Score:1, Informative)
You can get a little more perspective by reading sites like chinaSMACK [chinasmack.com]. It's pretty good for finding out how the average Chinese netizen sees things (with the caveat that the average of netizens may not be the same as the average person, though net cafes do seem pretty widespread).
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the investigation itself has been become suspicious [sina.com.cn] widely by Chinese netizens [sina.com.cn]. (Links in Chinese.)
The report of the investigation does honestly say that the police still not allowing them to see any real evidence or witness.
On the plus side, the case has been widely discussed in China's internet.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On the plus side, the case has been widely discussed in China's internet.
Emphasis mine, of course. I think that statement alone nicely illustrates the core problems with this whole concept.
Re:Skids greased? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you speak and write fluent Chinese?
No? In which case one part of the internet will always be China's Internet while the English bit is everyones. This is because everyone speaks English as a second language.
We cannot moan about being excluded from certain discussions simply because most of the people directly affected by the discussion choose to have the discussion in their first language rather than ours.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Stop trolling.
Re: (Score:2)
Why am I trolling?
It was a serious well meant point on the way I thought the original poster (who spoke Chinese) was using the expression "Chinese Internet".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Simpsons already did it (Score:3, Funny)
Credibility at last? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm pretty impressed by this. It seems to me that Western mainstream media still regards bloggers (I'm not talking about journalists who happen to have blogs, I'm talking about pure bloggers) as some kind of group of fringe weirdos.
I'm still waiting to see a good argument that traditional journalists are still necessary, and cannot be completely replaced by enthusiastic amateur bloggers and a good aggregation service. I'm not saying such an argument does not exist, but I'm still waiting to see it.
Also, see
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
and a good aggregation service
Fine with the rest, but goodluckwiththat. Online and offline news services still have the upper hand because you can go to one place and get all your news. Oh and amateur anythings suck at organizing themselves so I don't see this changing anytime soon.
Re: (Score:2)
amateur anythings suck at organizing themselves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_software_packages [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm still waiting to see a good argument that traditional journalists are still necessary, and cannot be completely replaced by enthusiastic amateur bloggers and a good aggregation service. I'm not saying such an argument does not exist, but I'm still waiting to see it.
Enthusiastic amateur bloggers can't afford to travel across the world. Most bloggers just take content that's created by traditional journalists and then provide analysis and aggregation. Without traditional journalists, there wouldn't be m
Re: (Score:1)
Thank you for explaining The Sun to me, it makes a lot more sense now.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually he was talking about the Guardian, Independent, and so on. I think it applies to all UK printed media, except maybe the Economist on a good day. I think the share prices are accurate too.
Everyone knows the tabloids are crap, but it's sort of worrying that almost all the 'quality' papers are too. And BBC journalist have the "make up story by talking to people at home, take a short trip abroad for credibility" disease too.
Re: (Score:2)
You forget one smaaaaallll thing - there are _local_ bloggers just about anywhere.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It seems to me that Western mainstream media still regards bloggers (I'm not talking about journalists who happen to have blogs, I'm talking about pure bloggers) as some kind of group of fringe weirdos.
It seems the climate is changing somewhat, as CNN uses the concept of "iReporters" pretty heavily these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Western mainstream media is competing with - and losing to - bloggers, so of course it tries to paint them as "weirdos". It won't work: too many "news sources" simply repeat what others have reported without doing any investigation themselves.
The only advantage a traditional new
Re: (Score:2)
I can't argue for why traditional journalists are still necessary, but I'll point out some reasons they're not.
1) Quality writing. 50 years ago, you could look to traditional journalists for quality writing. Not necessarily college-level writing, but it was still all proper English, with proper spelling and grammar. These days, forget it: even the largest newspapers' articles are full of spelling and grammar errors on par with a middle school class paper, except that middle school kids can probably write
A blogger? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
No, it would be more like having Minnesota Democrats Exposed [minnesotad...xposed.com] handle the Franken/Coleman recount.
Re: (Score:2)
Dear God, that site feels as if it were written by a tenth grader who plans on becoming a lawyer: unfocused drive-by posts spiced with pointless emphasis. What plays well as a soundbite on the network news just doesn't work on the internet: compared to, say, TPM or Firedoglake, it just lacks coherence. The republicans' best bet at this point is to just get the internet shut down: it's a medium that favors the intelligent and educated.
tacit? (Score:2, Informative)
It is not a tacit admission. It is an implied admission.
Don't use words unless you know what they mean. It won't make you look smarter; you will screw it up and look even dumber.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong, it means silently - such as approving by not expressing disapproval.
Re: (Score:2)
No, tacit means wordless, silent.
A tacit admission would be standing there, blankly, when someone accuses you of something and challenges you to contradict them.
This isn't a tacit admission of anything. This is an implicit recognition of the importance of the internet. The write-up is horribly written.
Re: (Score:1)
it takes 2 mods to implement (Score:2)
-1 (Flamebait) + 1 (Informative) = 0 (Smackdown)
Re:tacit? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sorry, but you clearly don't know the definition of tacit
See here for the correct definition: http://www.tfd.com/tacit [tfd.com]
Definition 2 clearly states "Implied by or inferred from actions or statements". The action in this case is appointing the blogger the head of investigation
so the reality of the situation is, it might make people look dumb when you incorrectly use a word, but you're making people dumber by getting modded up for incorrectly using a word.
Re: (Score:2)
Prominent blogger found dead. Investigations are underway.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're running a blog critical of the government in China, you've got to be pretty fearless, a lot stubborn and above all idealistic.
The obstacles They will throw in your way are worse than a thousand cuts but at least as numerous.
This guy was a complete strawman from the beginning, they have bribed him beyond anything imaginable or he's genuine.
It would be a pretty useless, threatening him or his family - They could not do anything without seriously exposing them to public outrage. The Chinese public is
Re: (Score:1)
Kid's game (Score:2, Insightful)
In wake of the widespread disbelief expressed across the Chinese internet with regard to the official explanation that a 24-year-old man died from serious brain injuries while playing hide-and-seek in a detention center...
Um, a 24 year old playing a kid's game. That's believable? Did I misread TFA?
What, the next time they'll say a guy died from playing patty-cake in prison?
Re:Kid's game (Score:5, Funny)
What, the next time they'll say a guy died from playing patty-cake in prison?
Obviously you've never been forced to play "Patty-cake" in a prison.
Re: (Score:2)
They call it a pound cake.
Re: (Score:2)
They call it a pound cake.
That's dessert. It nicely rounds off the cock-meat sandwich.
Hide-and-seek?!? (Score:1, Insightful)
Jinning police told Li's parents that he had sustained the head injuries, as well as kicks and blows, while playing hide-and-seek with other inmates
From the People that brought you an amazingly lame excuse, now accept this only-slightly-less-lame PR exercise.
I think I heard about this... (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't that the plot of the new re-imagined Charlie Chan movie?
Typical day in the life of a blogger (Score:5, Funny)
The faded gold lettering on the door says "Philip Marlowe." My digs aren't in the greatest part of town, but that suits me just fine. I'm a blogger-one of the few honest ones out there. Work was a little slow-I was spending some time on important research-reading Slashdot. I was just about to hit the submit button on a post entitled "Frosty Piss!" when the dame shrugged her way through my door. If I'd have known what was going to happen next, I would have stuck to trolling.
She was tall for an Oriental, but not unappealing. She wore a black silk dress cut in traditional Chinese manner, studded with soft pink roses. Her eyes were black and silky as the dress. They didn't stay still. "Are you Marlowe?" she asked, scanning the room.
"Sure," I replied diffidently.
"Your blogging reputation proceeds you. The Chinese government has a job for you."
"Nuts to that. I don't work for commies."
"I could make it worth your while, Mr. Marlowe."
"If I sold out to every fancy-pants who walked through that door, would I be working in this place?"
"I understand your position, Marlowe, but listen. There's a 24-year-old kid who got beaten to death while in police custody. The police say it was from playing hide-and-seek. We need an official investigation, and you're the best investigational blogger we know."
"Sure it wasn't from 'ring around the rosie'?" I smirked nastily. She took a sharp breath.
"Listen, Marlowe, don't you want to help improve the situation? I know you've had certain...shall we say...run-ins with hyperactive authority figures in the past. Surely this could help your reputation."
"MY reputation?" I practically yelled. "Lady, I've been called a troll, a spammer, and an astroturfer more times than you can count on your abacus. I've been modded down, banned, accused of violating TOSs, but I'm still here. So don't think you can tell me about my reputation. I'll do it for $100/day plus expenses."
"Very good, Mr. Marlowe," she purred.
"Oh, and one more thing," I stood up and got my hat. "I'd better be on the official Chinese government blogroll by sundown, or you're gonna have to find yourself a new patsy."
Re: (Score:2)
"Aren't you going to make me an offer I can't refuse?"
No mod points today, but my hat is off to you sir. Well done. And give my regards to Mr. Cairo...
Re: (Score:1)
Goddamnit, I wrote "proceeds" instead of "precedes." I need an editor!
Re: (Score:2)
You know, I think Cyrus Redblock would be amazingly well suited to this story, if we could work him into it...
Re: (Score:2)
That was great, I want to keep reading!
Re: (Score:2)
A+++++, excellent slashdotter.
WOULD DO BUSINESS AGAIN
Re: (Score:1)
$100/day plus expenses? Who is he, Jim Rockford?
Nice post.
This could be interesting. (Score:2)
The particular case is unlikely to ever be resolved to anyone's satisfaction, but the concept of having a blogger head an investigation is an interesting one. I'm not sure it's necessarily a good idea - a blogger lacks the contacts and insider information to be effective, but having a blogger somewhere on the team should improve communications.
This is only my opinion, but I'd wonder about the notion of splitting any investigating team into three sub-groups - the "regulars"/insiders, the independent experts,
Re: (Score:1)
The problem is that this blogger appeared to be a law n00b. Should the head investigator be an independent lawyer (arrrgh) it would be much more convincing.
AFAIK the investigators haven't got anything useful so far, according to local news.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Government 2.0 (Score:1, Interesting)
They are still a long way from "Government 2.0 [wikipedia.org]," which is starting to catch on here in the U.S.
And even in the U.S., we are still quite a long way from true "open source governance [wikipedia.org]."
Re: (Score:2)
They are still a long way from "Government 2.0 [wikipedia.org]," which is starting to catch on here in the U.S.
And even in the U.S., we are still quite a long way from true "open source governance [wikipedia.org]."
Nice try.
When you feel like it, feel free to come play with the rest of us in the real world.
Old strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
My father told me once that my Grandfather was a poor student and had discipline problems. One of his teachers noticed his rebellious attitude and successfully countered it by giving him additional responsibilities over his classmates.
I think it's a variation on the adage "if you can't beat'em, join'em". If you are in a position of power and someone is criticising the way things are being handled, invite them to help you handle them. They will be forced to put up or shut up, and if they criticise further they will be criticising themselves, which humans don't enjoy doing publicly.
China gave us Sun Tzu and the Art of War, they have an ancient civilization that was only opened with opium, black powder, and cannonballs. Their everyday politics are probably fascinating.
Re: (Score:2)
They are, and will drive you nuts in the process with how they go about their day to day operations.
some background (Score:5, Informative)
In case you are interested, here's some background info based on my readings..
The victim who died in police custody, Li, is a criminal suspect waiting for his trial in custody (according to Chinese court procedure). His death, according to the police, was the result of a physical conflict between him and another suspect. It was believed that the two suspects quarrelled over a dispute after playing some kind of game to kill time (games are usually forbidden, but they did it when the policemen were not watching). The quarrel escalated to physical conflict and Li, who was substantially weaker than his adversary, succumbed to his blow.
Li's death raised serious concern among "the blogosphere". It was suspected that Li might be a victim of torture by the police. Rumor has it that torture is a common practice of the Chinese police, and this is an often-discussed topic here.
The investigate which took place Friday proved to be very difficult. According to Chinese law, most information from the custodians are classified (e.g. security video record). The investigation team also tried to interview Li's attacker, but they were refused because the only one allowed to exchange information with the pre-trial suspect is his attorney. The blogger (whose moniker is "end tip of the wind") was far from being a professional investigator. He apparently lacked a grasp of criminal law and court procedures, and wasted much time on the stuff he had no hope of obtaining from the beginning. (I guess he needed an "IANAL" tag from /.)
The problem with this affair is the timing. Everything happened in the short time window of pre-trial custody, the least transparent period of criminal prosecution. This gave arise to reasonable questions as well as wild guesses.
They should have sent a pro. This blogger was supposed to be part of a gesture of "transparency" but he's a noob. IMHO he only made the situation worse. Conspiracy? Maybe or maybe not.
Disclaimer: I'm a Chinese (teh horror!) and IANAL (of course).
Re: (Score:1)
Just a minor point: You say the blogger calls himself "end tip of the wind". Isn't that a bit too literal a translation? Wouldn't the meaning come through more as "the latest fashion"?
Autonomy (Score:1, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yunnan is not an autonomous region. There does have quite a few autonomous prefectures/towns there, though.
belies? (Score:3, Informative)
beÂlie
tr.v. be-lied, be-ly-ing, be-lies
To give a false representation to; misrepresent: "He spoke roughly in order to belie his air of gentility" (James Joyce).
To show to be false; contradict: Their laughter belied their outward grief.
A 'local blogger,' in a police state. Riiight. (Score:3, Insightful)
"So; you'll do this for us?"
"Um, yeah; sure."
"Gee, thanks. We know you'll do the job to everyone's satisfaction.... Oh, nice family, by the way. Be a shame if anything happened to them...."
This means little. (Score:2)
Americans seem to think that by hiring a blogger they're somehow displaying some level of openness. The problem is that Americans are looking at this from a Western mindset where people like to believe, or pretend to be, anti-establishment.
Chinese, in general, are very pro government on a level most Americans cant even fathom. I've encountered many Chinese who've been here in the US for years who manage to remain surprisingly supportive of China.
So this doesn't really mean much at all. It's probably just an
Re: (Score:1)
Er...But China/P.R.C. Government/China Communist Party are 3 totally different things. The Chinese being supportive of China probably are just being patriotic, instead of pro government or pro CCP. That's why CCP is trying very hard to make people believe that "CCP = P.R.C. Government = China".
the result of the investigation committee (Score:1)
So now the result of this investigation committee comes out: No, they weren't threatened or bribed, and ....
By law, regular citizens (and all committee members are) are not allowed to meet the custody staff, or inspect any related file. So during the one day of "investigation", they recorded honestly what they saw and heard in the policy custody. And it's "absolutely impossible" for them to uncover any possible secret....
A nice PR try, that's all.
But still a progress.
http://news.ifeng.com/opinion/200902/022 [ifeng.com]
bullshit (Score:1)
the summery is total bullshit. it's a group of civilians chosen and invited by the government to take a closer look at the incident and the process of official invistigation. they don't have any authority, they had a tour for a day, got some briefs from the cops and read some documents. to call that blogger Head of Investigation is like to call Huffingtonpost the Ministry of Truth.
the gov department who organized this PR event is the Department of Propaganda(that's the official name), Communist Committee, Y
Re: (Score:1)
just link to the original article, idiot.
You mean the Xinhua article, diplomat? I linked to the GoKunming blog because its article was more informative and because it isn't controlled by the Chinese government.