Tag: China

China’s Not-so-Great Wall

The Chinese government has been tightening its cyber-noose. Its officials fear the ideas that can proliferate so easily on the Internet. So they’re making it ever harder for citizens to use the Net — even to visit nonpolitical websites.

Multiple-choice question: The new restrictions mean that Web surfers will have a harder time a) viewing pornography; b) watching streaming TV shows; c) starting an Internet-based business or personal web site; d) criticizing the Chinese government; or e) all of the above?

The answer is “all of the above.”

This year, China has blocked Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and many other sites. The latest round of restrictions has resulted in the shutdown of some 700 homegrown sites. Chinese dictocrats talk about combating pornography or piracy to justify restrictions that have a much wider scope. But they also freely admit their eagerness to block the flow of ideas they call “bad,” which is to say, inconvenient to themselves. China’s public security minister complains that the Internet “has become an important avenue” for “anti-China” forces.

Beijing can’t stamp out the Internet altogether. But it can certainly keep cooking up new ways to boil it down to an easier-to-control (or comprehend) size.

Chinese citizens who are determined to keep resisting the tyrants need more and better technology to circumvent the firewalls, and to protect their own anonymity and privacy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags China, Internet

national politics & policies responsibility too much government

$800 Billion Gorilla

It somehow didn’t come up.

Last week, when President Barack Obama met with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, there was reportedly no discussion of the fact that our country owes China over $800 billion.

Just suppose you owed someone $800 bucks . . . or $800,000. Do you think it could affect the relationship?

What about nearly a trillion dollars?

The Obama Administration just announced that American-Chinese relations are “at an all-time high.” But a story in the Washington Post compared our relationship with China to the nuclear stalemate of the Cold War, known as “mutually assured destruction,” or MAD. We’re dependent on them for future loans; they’re dependent on us to pay back old loans and new.

Kenneth Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution explained that “the Chinese can pull the rug out from under our economy only if they want to pull the rug out from under themselves.”

Reassuring? Not very.

Why have we allowed a foreign power to gain such leverage over us?

Because our politicians cannot — will not — limit their yearly spending to the trillion-plus dollars in revenue from American taxpayers.

When it comes to debt, China’s tyrants have taken better care of their country than our politicians have of ours. But we needn’t cede them control. Far better simply to stop borrowing billions from Beijing.

How? Slash spending. If our politicians can’t do it for us, maybe they can do it for their Chinese allies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags China, debt, spending

Common Sense

Welcome to Beijing

Many say that the Olympics are all about international competition and sportsmanship, nothing about politics. Or shouldn’t be.

But you can’t read about the Chinese government’s preparations for the Games without concluding that politics is involved here somewhere.

For one thing, officials have cracked down on beggars and disabled persons, who are being ordered off Beijing streets. Too unsightly, apparently. Also, it seems one of the quaint things Chinese citizens do is walk around in their pajamas in public. This too is outlawed during the Games.

Even dogs are on a tighter leash. Owners may now walk them only at certain times. And the canines better have their papers.

Foreign visitors are prohibited from displaying “religious, political, or racial banners.” Will the government be sending tanks against protesters?

Seven years ago, while bidding to host the Games, China promised that journalists would enjoy “complete freedom to report” — including unfettered access to the Internet. That’s now been tossed out the window, thanks to a recent “negotiation” with the International Olympic Committee. For example, reporters won’t be able to access Amnesty International or websites about Tibet.

Maybe China declared that if the IOC didn’t like the censorship, it could pack up and take the games somewhere else . . . figuring it was too late for the Committee to do anything but relent. But for the sake of freedom in this world, the Committee should have called the bluff.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.