Has Google Found Its Backbone? China Access Uncensored?

Mar 162010
 

Internet giant Google could soon close its Chinese search engine, industry commentators say.

RFA reports the company said Monday it was still in talks with officials to try to reach an agreement over censorship of its search results.

Meanwhile Google is rumored to have lifted restrictions on its Chinese search engine Tuesday.

MSNBC reported that “Web sites dealing with subjects such as the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, Tibet, and regional independence movements” could be searched and accessed through Google.cn, the Chinese search engine that Google provides for its mainland Chinese users.

NBC reported that while “searches proved erratic” and that access to some Web sites was occasionally denied, changes compared to just six months ago were sigtnificant.

Popular social media tool blocked in China

Apr 272009
 

Plurk, a technology which is similar to twitter and is quite popular in China is blocked. Read about it tomorrow on the RFA Cantonese service.

As the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen events approaches the Chinese government may be taking action against social media tools during this sensitive period. Chinese people have recently been quite successful at organizing protests via instant messages or other tools available on their cellphones.

Bao Tong: Guizhou and the grandfather ghosts

Jul 082008
 

So who has the power to “deploy police force” whenever they want to? It certainly isn’t ordinary Chinese people, nor is it a democratically elected government. It is a pack of bureaucrats nominated by the Communist Party, whose names have been picked out of a mechanical “election” process, who have been given a franchise on state power; with no competition.

– Bao Tong on the Guizhou unrest

2008-07-05
鲍彤评论：贵州省委书记一篇有普遍意义的讲话

On a remark by the Guizhou provincial Party secretary that merits everyone’s attention
by Bao Tong

瓮安县最近出了人命，案情离奇，众说纷纭。我也是一个”不明真相”的人，越听越糊涂。但是，贵州省委书记石先生7月3日的一席话，我听懂了。

Recently, a person died in Weng’an county. The details of the case are unclear, and many different versions are floating around. I too am one of those who don’t know what really happened. The more I hear, the more confused I become. But I did understand one thing, and that was a comment made on July 3 by Mr Shi, the Guizhou provincial Party secretary.

他的话，被公布出来的虽然只有寥寥几段，但是有重量，有深度，切合实际，对整个中国，有普遍意义。

Only a few fragments of his comments were actually reported, but those that were carry great depth and weight, striking close to the heart of the matter, and are worthy of the attention of the entire nation. Continue reading »