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>President Hu Jintao last year called for purification of the Internet, saying that it was poisoning the minds of China’s youth. What he really meant to say is that the government is upset that it cannot completely control the flow of information.<

 

 

Type in 'Tank man' or Tiananmen square massacare into any chinese search engine and you'll come up with a blank page. Top university student have never seen a photo of Tank man before.

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He gets a good rip into Britain and Japan. It's very convenient to blame others.

 

In 1066, Normandy was part of England. Is it historically justified to invade France because they consume wine and frogs rather than beer and pies?

 

thursday. My ex-wife is Hong Kong Chinese. She was sent to the UK for a private education, and as far as I can establish, married me for a UK passport. At the time, Hong Kong Chinese were bolting to get out because they didn't trust the mainland government. Don't try to snow me.

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 Originally Posted By: thursday.
you believe that? I mean do you beleive university students in China don't know or have never heard about Tianamen.


I'm sure that they have heard about it, I never said otherwise. What I'm saying is that they would almost certainly NOT have heard of it from any public or government source ie. the internet. All that stuff has been censored off the face of the earth, along with tank man himself.
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Ok. I just conducted a quick experiment where I asked my Chinese assistant to do a series of searches using Google.cn on Tiananmen square protests in mandarin. Some might be surprised that whilst an English language search throws up all sorts of stuff, including wikipedia articles, the mandarin search using Chinese Google has very little at all and none of the sites that mentioned the protests had .cn web adresses.

 

Kind of undermines the angst the Chinese are suffering due to the supposed bias in the western media.

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Tank man.

 

TSquareiblog.jpg

 

 

This from Antony Thomas's documentary on Frontline.

 

The Chinese government has responded to this threat by cracking down on dissent, and on the media. The regime has managed to erase the Tank Man's image, famous throughout the world, from Chinese memory. Thomas shows the iconic picture to undergraduates at Beijing University, the nerve center of the 1989 protests; none of them recognize it. Central to the regime's struggle to control information is its filtering of the Internet, a complex undertaking that raises serious issues about the role of Western IT companies in China's censorship strategy.

 

Companies such as Google, Yahoo and Cisco have been bending over backwards to crack into the Chinese IT market by providing Tailor made internet filtering products specified by the Chinese government. In Feburary 2006, these same companies had to appear before the U.S. congress to explain themselves on how they were not making human rights violations. The US could do jack shit about it as they weren't breaking any U.S. laws at the time.

 

I saw Thomas's documentary a few months ago. The web site is worth a look. I had no idea the net could be sensored in such a way.

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Bit on the telly this morning about Nagano people getting all worried about the relay going through the city soon. Some people seem to be on the border or boarding up their windows!

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April 19 Bangkok

April 21 Kuala Lumpur

April 22 Jakarta

April 24 Canberra

April 26 Nagano

April 27 Seoul

April 28 Pyongyang

April 29 Ho Chi Minh City

May 2 Hong Kong <----- I'm taking the day off. Am now collecting rotten tomatoes to pelt protesters with.

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A major Buddhist temple has withdrawn from plans to host Japan's opening stage of the Olympic torch relay.

 

Zenkoji Temple, in the city of Nagano, had been due to serve as the starting point for the parade on 26 April.

 

An official said the monks were worried about safety but also linked the decision to concern over recent unrest in Tibet.

 

Meanwhile the torch has arrived in Thailand in preparation for a parade through the capital city, Bangkok.

 

The relay has been dogged by protests over Tibet, with chaotic scenes in London, Paris and San Francisco.

 

Security row

 

In Japan, the torch is to be paraded 18.5km (11.5 miles) through Nagano, which hosted the 1998 Winter Olympic Games.

 

The decision by the temple to withdraw was announced after talks with city officials.

 

"We needed to think about security, being a temple with national treasures and many visitors," a temple official told Reuters news agency.

 

"We also had to take into account the many messages of concern that we, as a Buddhist temple, received from residents all over the country and from our followers after growing international focus on the Tibet issue."

 

Kunihiko Shinohara, of Nagano's organising committee for the relay, said that the starting point for the parade would be changed.

 

"We respect the temple's decision," he said.

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 Originally Posted By: FRANK RYAN
As in the news today, Zenkoji monks refused to host the relay at the temple due to security concerns. What a shame this whole issue has become and will continue to manifest into.


Why is it a shame? I think it has been a great opportunity for the rest of the world to highlight their concerns over ongoing human rights abuses in China. As I've said earlier I think awarding the Olympics to China is about as bad as awarding them to Nazi Germany in '36. The Olympic committee should be made to realise what a terrible mistake they have made and China should be made to realise that just because they are powerful economically doesn't mean we will all just accept the abuses that occur in their country (well our governments might but we the people can still voice our concerns!). I hope everyone in Nagano gets out and does their bit to protest the atrocities that continue in China.

Beijing%202008%20handcuffs%20509.jpg
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 Originally Posted By: Go Native
 Originally Posted By: FRANK RYAN
As in the news today, Zenkoji monks refused to host the relay at the temple due to security concerns. What a shame this whole issue has become and will continue to manifest into.


The Olympic committee should be made to realise what a terrible mistake they have made and China should be made to realise that just because they are powerful economically doesn't mean we will all just accept the abuses that occur in their country.



Yes, but think what kind of a world it would be if you can't buy a $14.95 cordless battery drill.
;\)
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The torch is in Canberra this morning. So far the protesters (from both sides) are behaving themselves. Security for the Australian leg of the torch relay has just about trippled since the original estimate.

This is all a little different to the Sydney 2000 olympic torch relay when my wife ran as a torch bearer. I don't recall seeing police anywhere. She even passed the torch around amongst the punters so they could get their photos taken with it.

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I don't like the Olympics at the best of times, so all this politicalisation of the torch run gets right on my mammary glands. China is hardly gonna change its stance over Tibet just because the usual hippy suspects start a rammy every time the torch goes by. I've become rather jaded with the wole thing as you may well have noticed

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was going to take the kids to see the torch pass through Nagano on Saturday but with all the police presence might be better giving it a miss

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