China's New Internet Plan

eldavojohn writes "The internet in China is diverging rapidly from the state that the rest of the world enjoys it. Recent news of China's leader, Hu Jintao, has revealed a strategy to distort it even further. Jintao is tackling the issue his Communist party is having with the youth of China that are too young to remember Chairman Mao and the fanaticism the populace had for him. A strategy he is proposing is 'cleaning up' China's internet & lacing it with a little propaganda like the need to 'Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere' online. The meeting notes also declared that 'Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance.'"

Status Quo

[FooGoo]

This sounds like every other government/corporate plan to me so it's governance/business as usual. When will goverments and corps realize that the internet doesn't belong to them. It belongs to the users we just allow them to use it and profit from it if we so desire. If you can't compete on your own merits as a company, ideology, or political system this is not the place for you.
FG

In the meantime

[iamacat]

US announced sweeping controls of radiowaves whereby an oligarchy of a dozen media companies will promptly fire anyone who contradicts the official culture by quoting a best selling rap singer.

Re:What can really be done about this?

[giorgiofr]

Erm, you're only stopping support for Chinese manufacturers, I'm afraid. Their gov't is totally unintersted in your actions. If what you're thinking about goes along the lines of stopping support for their industries so that the people will rebel against a gov't that, by alienating foreigners, takes their livelihood away: remember that China will shortly be a self-substaining market.
I believe there is no way to make the Chinese gov't change their mind. Only the peoples of China can choose to get rid of it, and apparently they're not really that keen on doing so.

Re:Fear is the Mind Killer

[Opportunist]

I understand you well. I love the USA. I love the country. I love the people. A good deal of my friends and people I care for live and work in the US, simply because they were born there and live there.

I hate the US government, I hate the way corporations grasp more and more power over the people, I hate the loss of liberties for fake security.

I love the country. I hate the way it's run.

You forget

[d3ac0n]

That communism isn't about competition. Communism is about eliminating all competing ideas and asserting absolute control over every aspect of life. The communist leaders understand perfectly well about the "competition of ideas". They also know they can't compete because communism is a failed ideology. Thusly they seek to control access to information and keep their people in the dark. It's typical totalitarianism.

(To the commie trolls: Yes, I KNOW that's not how communism and socialism is supposed to work, I've read both Marx and Mao. The problem is that in practice it cannot possibly work the way it's designers envisioned it because they didn't take human nature into account.)

Re:Fear is the Mind Killer

[smidget2k4]

And he wasn't impeached for getting head (which is simply bad PR, not really an impeachable offense), he was impeached in the House for lying under oath about getting head.

BIG difference there. One is a felony, the other is being an asshole.

Re:And this diverges ... how?

[mi]

do I care whether I get corporate or party spam?

You (should) care because corporations are many and competing, whereas there is only one Party (in China).

Same as the "cleaning up" shit in Turkey

[unity100]

Same kind of people everywhere. Bunch of retarded morons that are relics of cold war age, struggling to FORCE the youth to live like they did.

They need to die off fast so that the new ages can have a good chance.

Re:Fear is the Mind Killer

[rlp]

Let me add this little thought experiment:

Set-up two local sites: one in China, one in the US. In each, post articles denouncing the local country and call the country's leader every vile name known to man. In the US, you'll end up with a popular left-wing web site. In China, you'll get a knock on the door in the middle of the night and will never be heard from again.

Not really different

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny is that if you take out the specific references to Marx and China, this reads almost like a press release from the Democratic National Committee.

Re:And this diverges ... how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank God I live in America, where this kind of behavior is only exhibited by corporations (like Google, Apple, and Microsoft), and our government. Oh, wait a minute...

Re:Fear is the Mind Killer

[nsayer]

the other is being an asshole

Let me clarify the clarification. Even getting head is not so bad. Clinton's actions were "assholish" on two counts:

1. He was married at the time. Granted, there are open marriages out there where it may be ok to get some on the side, I don't recall any evidence that this was the case with the Clintons. The fact that he had to seek her forgiveness, in fact, supports that it was a move with "asshole" status.

2. He was getting it from a subordinate employee approximately half his age. Retire the cup.

The parent is correct that the only reason it became grist for Congress' mill was the fact that he lied about it under oath. Besides, rumors [geocities.com] abound [wisc.edu] that he wasn't the first president who might have got his winky wet the wrong way.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Echoes of 1936

[Oktober Sunset]

I don't recall the Chinese claiming to be any kind of master race, so some guy beating them at running really isn't going to bother them that much. I guess getting whipped at gymnastics might annoy the people who came up with the whole gymnastics boot camp thing, but it's really not going to piss on their whole ideology like Jesse Owen did the the Nazis.

Re:What can really be done about this?

[grumpyman]

. Only the peoples of China can choose to get rid of it, and apparently they're not really that keen on doing so.

How do you know that they're not really keen? You need another 1989 to prove that they're keen?

Re:Same as the "cleaning up" shit in Turkey

[unity100]

what era do children grow up, matters much.

these were the ones who grew up in ww2 and start of the cold war. the furthest extent their vision can go has been long walked past by.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Human Nature

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Nobody designed capitalism. Capitalism more or less happened as people felt the need for certain things like e.g. money. I tend to think of as being the more civilized cousin of natural selection. Natural selection doesn't guarantee you a better species, nor a perfect one. But it does move in the direction of providing the fittest. Likewise, capitalism doesn't guarantee the best outcome or the best products. It does however move rapidly into the direction that the society as a whole chooses. In the course of this, some people win, and some people lose.

Communism, on the other hand, moves in the direction that the state chooses, and this is more comparable to selective selection. Selective selection, for those who don't know, is the process with which humans selectively bred animals like wolves into animals like pugs. This is entirely the result of somebody saying "hey, lets make this." Pugs are not a naturally occurring animal, wolves are on the other hand. Pugs are only useful to humans, and not to themselves. Likewise, a communist society is only useful to its state, and not necessarily to itself. The end result is that everybody is equally miserable.

Natural selection isn't fair, and neither is life. Capitalism works in harmony with that, whereas communism tries to work against it.

Re: Echoes of 1936

[Chandon Seldon]

We didn't even get the sort of regime change that happens every 4 or 8 years here.

In a real regime change, the creeping plague of bureaucracy is reset.

Re:Human Nature

[Red Flayer]

follows capitalism, in which people who work hard and make good choices are rewarded while the lazy and stupid are not.

That's not an accurate description of capitalism at all. Capitalism doesn't reward those who work hard; it rewards those who have money to work hard for them. Capitalism doesn't reward those who make good choices, it rewards those who make choices that are good within a restricted value set. That value set includes wealth accumulation, which is of debateable value. It's a tautology to say that capitalism rewards those who make good choices, since the choices you are referring to are only 'good' because of the capitalist system they are made in.

True communism, for example, rewards those who work hard and make good choices as well. How? Their society benefits, so the individual does as well. Marxist Communism also rewards those who work hard and make good choices -- the difference being that choices are made by a group, rather than an individual.

I don't think you'll ever be able to grasp the concept of Communism until you let go of the primacy of personal wealth accumulation. For example,

"class struggle" (code for wealth envy)

Class struggle isn't about wealth envy, it's about self-determinism. In a pure capitalist society, wealth outweighs or defines all other factors of self-determinism (education, access to influence, etc).

Sometimes the lazy and stupid wind up rich (think about the rich liberal living-on-trust-fund brat denizens of the Hamptons)

What about the rich conservative living-on-trust-fund brat denizens of Houston? Your bias is very clear, and subtracts from your logic.

Capitalism isn't designed to cure all problems. It's merely that which exists without government intervention,

Not so. Cooperation (the basis of communism) happens without government intervention -- capitalism is a system dependent upon a stable money supply, which does not exist without government interference. One could say that totalitarianism is what is most likely to happen without government intervention -- but then at what point is the totalitarian become the government?

government intervention, which always creates more problems than it solves (and it never solves anything).

Well, that's just wrong, as most absolutes are. It's a pithy saying based on faith that has few foundations in fact or in theory. Government intervention can solve the tragedy of the commons, for example. Sure, governments can (and often do!) intervene poorly, but that's a matter of execution, not of a theoretical impossibility of positive interference. If you reduce government to its most basic level (that of the family), would you still argue that interference by the decision-makers cannot solve problems?

By the way, did Marx ever define what a "class" was?

Yes, he did -- and the tendency for those not to have studied what he wrote is to not be able to make sense of his class distinctions, since they are not defined by wealth, as classes are defined under capitalism. Instead they are defined by their relationship to the means of production. Here's a primer for you [answers.com], so you can get a basic view of how the "middle class" fits into Marxist theory.

I'm not a communist, but I think it's important to understand the communist point of view if I want to have a meaningful discussion of capitalism. It's also important to understand basic theories of government, and the differences between economic systems from political systems, as well as how they interrelate.

Re:But who cares?

[jez9999]

as it hasn't had any on mine when I was a student there in 1980's.

Were you brought up in the US and went to study in China, already having decided on your outlook, or did you grow up from early childhood in China? Big difference.

Re: Echoes of 1936

[tzhuge]

Try a Google search on:
"Racism in France". Eye-opening. The French strike me as pretty f'ing racist.
"Racism in Italy". Eye-opening. Italians strike me as pretty f'ing racist.
"Racism in USA". Eye-opening. Americans strike me as pretty f'ing racist.
"Racism in England". Eye-opening. The English strike me as pretty f'ing racist.
"Racism in Israel". Eye-opening. Jews strike me as pretty f'ing racist.

It seems that the hypocrisy of a comment that associates an entire ethnic group with racism is lost on /. mods (+3 Informative... HA).

Re: Echoes of 1936

[metalogic]

Aren't you yourself "f'ing racist" when you accuse the whole "Han Chinese" race of sharing a same trait? They are all the same, right? Perhaps you can tell us why do you hate "Han Chinese" so much?