China’s one party state and authoritarian rule which sees it carefully select the information its citizens have access to is likely to lead to its downfall argues British academic and commentator Will Hutton in the Observer.
Hutton makes the point that China can not be both a cutting edge knowledge based economy and an authoritarian one party state at the same time. He points to the Wenjou train crash and the subsequent wide dissemination of the facts via social media which eventually lead to even state employed journalists ignoring the censors directives to play down the tragedy as an example of how the regime is losing its grip on power.
He says ‘If nobody can be safe, do we want this speed? Can we live in apartments that do not fall down? Can the roads we drive on in our cities not collapse? Can we travel in safe trains? And if there is a major accident can we not be in a hurry to bury the trains? Can we afford the people a basic sense of security?”
When a news anchor on China‘s state TV feels he can say that on a broadcaster which has become the world gold standard for censorship and propaganda, you know that something profound is afoot. But it is not just the crash last weekend outside Wenzhou, involving two high speed trains that cost 39 lives and some 190 injured, that has appalled the country. It has been the Communist party’s attempt once again to try to close down the whole affair that has aroused passionate protest.
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