LancasterCounty
27-07-2007, 17:32
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072700080.html?hpid=moreheadlines
As bad news continues to come out of China, it is actually being talked about in China until the propaganda arm of the Chinese Government steps in to try and squash it.
Some of the things being talked about is tainted food, power monopoly, and peasant unrest.
From the article:
BEIJING -- According to a report circulating among Beijing intellectuals, Li Changchun, China's senior propaganda official, went to President Hu Jintao recently suggesting a ban on the July issue of the magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu.
The scholarly monthly had published a long and daring article by a Communist Party professor saying that the party's monopoly on power was the "root cause" of many of the ills afflicting modern-day China, including corruption and peasant unrest.
And even more:
The incident was only the latest in a string of setbacks for Li and China's propaganda bureaucracy. An explosion of negative news -- tainted food exports, slave labor at brick kilns, political challenges and even supposed cardboard dumplings -- has pained party censors and renewed demands for ideological and political discipline among China's journalists.
And even going so far as to jail people and calling a story a hoax:
The order was handed down in response to a high-impact Beijing Television broadcast this month reporting that a fast-food restaurant had mixed cardboard with pork in stuffing its steamed dumplings. The report caused a sensation among Beijing residents, who cherish their dumplings and who were already sensitized by weeks of reporting on food safety concerns.
But authorities quickly branded the broadcast a hoax. The reporter, identified as an inexperienced temp called Zi Beijia, was jailed, and party propaganda officials scolded journalists loudly for lax ethics and needlessly stirring up worries among the public.
In the minds of authorities and Chinese who follow the party line, the scandal was a way to undermine weeks of other reporting on tainted food and drugs, including numerous dispatches by foreign correspondents. In their view, such reports were vastly overblown.
Yes we all know that China has no regard of what freedom of speech is and this is proof of that. However, they cannot continue doing this with the Olympics being held in Beijing next year. The more they crack down on "violations of journalism ethics" the more the people are not going to be very happy. In fact they are not happy as it is.
The article is very well written and I would like NSG's opinions on the future of China in regards to this issu.
As bad news continues to come out of China, it is actually being talked about in China until the propaganda arm of the Chinese Government steps in to try and squash it.
Some of the things being talked about is tainted food, power monopoly, and peasant unrest.
From the article:
BEIJING -- According to a report circulating among Beijing intellectuals, Li Changchun, China's senior propaganda official, went to President Hu Jintao recently suggesting a ban on the July issue of the magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu.
The scholarly monthly had published a long and daring article by a Communist Party professor saying that the party's monopoly on power was the "root cause" of many of the ills afflicting modern-day China, including corruption and peasant unrest.
And even more:
The incident was only the latest in a string of setbacks for Li and China's propaganda bureaucracy. An explosion of negative news -- tainted food exports, slave labor at brick kilns, political challenges and even supposed cardboard dumplings -- has pained party censors and renewed demands for ideological and political discipline among China's journalists.
And even going so far as to jail people and calling a story a hoax:
The order was handed down in response to a high-impact Beijing Television broadcast this month reporting that a fast-food restaurant had mixed cardboard with pork in stuffing its steamed dumplings. The report caused a sensation among Beijing residents, who cherish their dumplings and who were already sensitized by weeks of reporting on food safety concerns.
But authorities quickly branded the broadcast a hoax. The reporter, identified as an inexperienced temp called Zi Beijia, was jailed, and party propaganda officials scolded journalists loudly for lax ethics and needlessly stirring up worries among the public.
In the minds of authorities and Chinese who follow the party line, the scandal was a way to undermine weeks of other reporting on tainted food and drugs, including numerous dispatches by foreign correspondents. In their view, such reports were vastly overblown.
Yes we all know that China has no regard of what freedom of speech is and this is proof of that. However, they cannot continue doing this with the Olympics being held in Beijing next year. The more they crack down on "violations of journalism ethics" the more the people are not going to be very happy. In fact they are not happy as it is.
The article is very well written and I would like NSG's opinions on the future of China in regards to this issu.