Chinese Censorship
How reliant we have become on the internet to transport information. With the media blocks in China, what will historians deduce thirty years from now when they look back on this period? Because there were no bulletin board posts challenging gov’t position on Taiwan no body within China objected to the policies?
I suppose it’s the same problem we have now when we look at the past. Those who have had the skill to write have usually been the wealthy and educated. Those who would want to support the government of their nation. Now, though, the skill to write has been spread to dissenters so the opportunity to write is being removed. Is the spread of ideas, even dissenting ones, a right to be protected or a privilege that can be suspended?
If we say we respect the right for a government to act in what it sees as the best interests of its citizens by censoring an ‘outspoken minority,’ what about when this censorship becomes part of the classroom curriculum HERE? I was in a Chinese history class where the instructor (American, Caucasian, b/c it matters on cultural context) said that you CANNOT meet a Chinese person who doesn’t have a strong opinion Taiwan. Usually, she said, that opinion is that if China has to lose so many millions of lives to take that island, it would be justified. I know this isn’t true. On a common sense level it’s ridiculous to say that EVERYONE has a strong position on this subject. Second, I’ve spoke to people who’ve lived their entire lives in China who say that Taiwan isn’t an issue to them or their friends. LOTS of people care far more about the Chinese economy than relations with Taiwan. It seems to me that this instructor came to this view because the people she spoke with in China were either coached or selected by people with government interests (or she was horribly exaggerating).
If we accept foreign censorship, we end up censoring our selves and our youth.