"We know that certain topics are censored from blogs hosted in China, Chinese search engines and Weibos," Tschang writes in his paper. "But we don't know where the line lies. Part of the reason is because the line is constantly moving …."
Using the data visualization software Tableau, Tschang plotted … deleted weibos on a timeline, then superimposed politically sensitive events to provide context ….
And the best time to weibo something politically sensitive in China? After 11 o'clock on a Friday night, according to the data.
"Interestingly, deletion of Sina Weibo messages tend to hit a low on Saturdays," Tschang wrote. "I'm not too sure why that is, except that maybe censors want to take time off on weekends as well."
In one of a number of recent interviews, Ai Weiwei talks to The Telegraph's Malcolm Moore about his childhood, fatherhood, why he is determined to stay in China, and an encounter with plain-clothed policemen in a local park:
"Neither of them would admit that they were police. They just said they were people walking in the park. But I could tell. I grabbed one of their cameras. They were police, and they can be very tough, of course. But I can be tougher sometimes."
After grappling with the policeman, he managed to get a memory card out of the camera. "When I got back to my home, I put the card in my computer and I saw something shocking. There were images of my assistants in the park, shot from far away, of the restaurant where I eat, of different young guys and students, in different locations. You know they do this all the time, but it is shocking to see it," he says.
… By the end of the encounter, Ai and his two surveillance officers had visited the local police station, and the younger policeman was on the verge of tears.
"I said to him he should admit he had done something wrong," recalls Ai. "He said: 'Please understand it is not easy to do this job'. I told him I would not reveal his name on the internet, but he should think about the 81 days I was put in jail, when my mother and my wife and child did not know where I was. I asked him if he thought that was right. He was speechless. He was an ordinary person, but part of this system. I do not have a problem with him. I am fighting against someone I will never know."
"Through his efforts, his strong spirit and incisiveness have made it so that other Chinese people have no excuse to still be living in fear because their situations will never be worse than his," Ai said on Tuesday in his most extensive comments on Chen's case since his escape.
"The most unfair things that could have happened in a society fell upon a blind man," Ai said. "This is something that no one can accept or explain away with any excuse. Everyone will ask: 'Do we actually have to exist in a society like this …?'"
Ai does not know Chen personally and said he was "extremely surprised" when he received a call from him in New York on Saturday.
"I like you very much," Chen told Ai, to which Ai replied: "I've liked you all along too."
Actress Zhang Ziyi has hit back at claims that she had been pimped to Bo Xilai, the deposed former Chongqing boss, and other senior officials, by issuing a formal statement threatening to seek legal actions, reports May Daily.
The original report regarding the scandal came from Boxun, an overseas Chinese community website based in the US, saying that the 33-year-old actress had made 700 million yuan from sleeping with the rich and powerful over the last decade, particularly with Bo Xilai (for more than 10 times between 2007 and 2011).
The report also detailed that Xu Ming, former president of the Dalian Shide Group who has been detained for his close ties with Bo Xilai, introduced Zhang to Bo.
And Zhang now has been put under investigation by the Chinese government and prohibited from leaving the country.
In the beginning, the actress, who is currently shooting "The Grandmasters" in Guangzhou, calmly denied the rumor on her Weibo account, "saying early Tuesday morning that the production team was working hard to make artificial rain for the movie and joking that even the sky was fabricating."
In the formal statement aiming at the Apple Daily, "Zhang took the newspaper to task and said she felt 'chilled to the bone and deep sorrow' over the 'slander and smears it had published."
"We will demand justice in law. We will dig you out from your dark corner and follow up the inquiries," she added.
Zhang's involvement in the sex scandal with Bo has widespread on the foreign websites and newspapers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. But no such report could be found in China due to the strict censorship by the government. Some websites have quickly removed the related articles after publishing.
But the following Weibo post survives (the user posted a photo of Apple Daily's report, but refer it to an KFC advertisement put on the newspaper in order to pass the censorship).
Chinese leaders enjoy a level of privacy unheard of in the West; the often vast business and political dealings of their families are shrouded in mystery by design. Only when Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai fell from grace in March did he expose himself to scrutiny from the outside world, illuminating the web of connections that bound him and his family to global business and political interests.
[...]In recent years, only the Bo clan has had its affairs ingloriously paraded in front of the international media — the business ties of top leaders like President Hu Jintao and his successor Xi Jinping remain mostly unknown. But here are four senior Chinese leaders whose web of connections have already been probed, and whose full exposure would most increase the outside world's understanding of how the system works. [...]
There are two parallel systems in China to punish criminal conduct, one for Communist Party members and the other, the formal criminal process. When a party member is suspected of a crime, it is the party's own investigation that comes first.
[...]In theory, CCP members who commit crimes will be turned over to the procuracy or police and the courts for criminal prosecution after initially being punished internally by the party's own Commissions for Discipline Inspection (CDI). In practice, this happens in only a small minority of cases, and Party officials have the final say over the courts' dispositions of those cases – a stark illustration of the Party's influence over the criminal justice system.
[...]China's leadership has consistently proclaimed that Chinese law must have "Chinese characteristics," but that is a contradiction: Legal institutions remain subject to party control despite the ideal of the rule of law that is stated in the Chinese constitution.
Though nothing has been confirmed yet, the rumor that Zhang Ziyi, China's famous actress, is implicated in the case of Bo Xilai, China's recently collapsed high official, has gone viral online.
It started with an article on boxun.com (博讯新闻网), an overseas Chinese website famous for its coverage of political news and human right abuses of China. On May 28, boxun.com reported that Zhang was being investigated for her sexual transactions with Bo Xilai, and was barred from travelling abroad.
Full of juicy details, the article claimed that Zhang first had sex with Bo's close friend Xu Ming, head of Dalian Shide Group, in 2007, and was paid 6 million RMB in exchange. According to the article, Xu later introduced Zhang to Bo, who has since "met with" Zhang at least 10 times between 2007 and 2011. Zhang, on the other hand, has garnered a total of 700 million RMB from her "meetings" with numerous officials. The article added that she never paid any taxes for the large sum thanks to her high official friends.
Zhang Ziyi used to be engaged to Israeli American venture capitalist Aviv Nevo, and later split up with him in 2010.
The rumor, assuming it is a rumor, soon spread. On May 29, Hong Kong's Apple Daily quoted boxun.com in an article which has since been deleted. While the actress herself (@稀土部队) tweeted about the weather in Guangzhou, implicitly referring to the news, her agency staffers (@透明的稀土) were far more outspoken.
Zhang is so outraged this time that she will resort to legal means and sue Apple Daily for defamation. An open letter from Zhang is posted on Weibo, together with an English-language letter from Hong Kong-based law firm Haldanes alleging "grave libel."
Reactions on Weibo
Though rumor of Zhang's sex deals with Bo already made its way into most major Chinese online forums, no direct link to Apple Daily's report is given by Zhang's staffers, nor is boxun.com accessible from Mainland China. It would thus seem that most Sina Weibo users don't know of Zhang's rumored implication in Bo Xilai's case yet. But enthusiastic microbloggers who are in the know have still engaged in a lively discussion.
Many netizens find it hard to verify the news and choose to wait up till truth itself surfaces. Others who empathize more with Zhang (@香港在线, for example,) suggest that the actress, instead of suing Apple Daily for its libel, should simply hop on an international flight to prove Apple Daily wrong.
More netizens take a very cynical approach at the news. They have seen so many celebrity scandals these years that they are no longer surprised at Zhanag's selling out. @伯纳乌V simply signed, "Zhang has the highest labeled price for actresses who prostitute themselves. 700 million RMB in ten years—see, now she's in trouble!" @小玉乐乐 resorted to textual analysis: "Knowing her ability to express herself, her [literary] Weibo tweet was definitely written by someone else!" @龙井8 tweeted, "[Whether the news is] true or not, it's not really important. What matters is that Miss Zhang's going to charge even more in the future." @北区青年 pointed out the iron theory of counter-defamation: "Rumors when denied vehemently will always prove to be true."
Online speech is not dampened
Television host Yang Rui recently threatened to sue blogger Charlie Custer (editor of ChinaGeeks) for defamation after Custer demanded Yang be fired for anti-foreigner statements made on Weibo. Such a tete a tete could have sparked a fear of lawsuits among the general netizen populace, dampening online speech. But after the release of Zhang Ziyi's open letter, netizens on Weibo demonstrated that they still feel free to tweet whatever they have in mind.
Rikyo, a 33-year-old mother of three children, torched herself on Wednesday afternoon near a monastery in Dzamthang (in Chinese, Rangtang) county in the Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the epicenter of the burnings which began in February 2009.
Her self-immolation brings to 38 the number of burnings so far protesting Chinese rule in Tibetan-populated areas and calling for the return of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
[...]Nearly all the self-immolations so far have taken place in Sichuan and in two other Tibetan-populated provinces in western China—Qinghai and Gansu—as Tibetans question Chinese policies which they say are discriminatory and have robbed them of their rights.
Chinese security forces in Lhasa have rounded up hundreds of residents and pilgrims in the wake of a fiery weekend self-immolation protest in Tibet's capital, as the Tibetan burnings in protest against Chinese rule rage on, sources said.
Locals detained are being held in detention centers in and around Lhasa while many of those from outside the Tibet Autonomous Region have been expelled, sources said, with one estimating that about 600 Tibetans had been detained so far.
[...]On May 27, foreign tourists found at the self-immolation site were taken quickly back to their hotels and their cameras were thoroughly searched, and some were told to leave Tibet, he said.
A Tibetan monk living in western China has sent a petition to the European Parliament defending a recent wave of self-immolation protests against Chinese rule and appealing for Europe's help in restoring Tibetan freedoms and securing the return of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
The 21-page document, a copy of which was obtained by RFA, quotes extensively from an unpublished book, The Black Annals, written by a Tibetan monk and schoolteacher, Atsun Tsondru Gyatso, who disappeared in Chinese custody more than a year ago.
The petition, written as though sent on Gyatso's behalf, was dated May 18 and was sent anonymously from inside the Yulshul Tibetan prefecture of China's Qinghai province, passing through several hands before arriving in Switzerland for delivery to EU officials.
Apparently, James Fallows' latest book, "China Airborn" has argued the reason the Internet in China is 'slow' is due to censorship. Due to censorship, Fallows argued, China would never be innovative enough and hence won't be able to produce her own companies like Apple. In this article, he capitulates to his readers who contend that the Internet within China is actually fast. It's 'slow' only when Westerners try to access web sites outside China. From that, he concludes China's Internet is still an 'intranet,' which makes Chinese society incapable of becoming world class. That's nonsense too. It's the same sort of hogwash as the Chinese dream article he wrote recently.
The reason Western web sites are 'slow' from within China is because such web sites don't have servers physically located inside China. If Fallows had tried to access Microsoft or Yahoo from within China, he'd known it's fast. Why? Because those companies have co-located their servers in China and are likely paying for high-bandwidth connections in highly populated areas.
Now, if Fallows had tried to access a Chinese web site from the U.S., he'd find the access slow too. Why? That's because traffic will have to cross the Pacific and make it's way into somewhere within China. Of course, if that web site is popular and has many users in the U.S., it's likely that site will have servers co-located in high-bandwidth data centers throughout America. This is why companies like Akamai makes tons of money provisioning high-bandwidth services to major web sites around the world!
Does the fact that America has a 'slow' access into China make the U.S. Internet an intranet? Nonsense!
Sure, China censors it's Internet. Political speech is much more restrictive in China. Does that translate to an inability to innovate? Does cracking down on a dissident who wants to overthrow the Chinese government translate to Chinese companies unable to make smartphones? This Huawei Quad Core smartphone seems to be pretty competitive against the iPhone.
I would credit the ability to innovate in America to the scientific peer review in her science journals. I would credit innovation also to America's venture capital and startup culture. I also credit innovation to America's wealth. If 800 million Chinese are still toiling in the farms for subsistence, well, that's a lot of people not given the opportunity to innovate. Give China time!
I would further argue there is a mental intranet that has possessed Fallows and many Westerners.
Has Fallows done a search in Chinese on Baidu? In fact, despite Google having it's server shut down in China, Google still commands about 10+% search revenue from the Chinese market. Why? That's because many Chinese users are searching for English content on Google.com. Also, look at the ratio of Chinese students studying in the U.S. versus the other way around? It's an order of magnitude in difference. For this reason, I highly support President Obama's 100K Strong initiative.
The reason Fallows use 'intranet' to describe the Chinese Internet is because the Western mindset has been indoctrinated to view suppression of political speech as some sort of mind control by the government.
It's an 'intranet,' because, my god, it's in Chinese?!
When we talk about innovation, we are talking about the flow of ideas. Advocates of FLG or Tibetan separatist being censored hardly makes any difference. In terms of the free flow of ideas, until Fallows does his first search in Chinese on Baidu, I wager China may eventually 'win' the innovation competition. Because? The mental intranet is too cocky and believes others cannot innovate or have dreams. And, certainly, Fallows doesn't lack intelligence.
[Edit May 30, 2012]
For the bottom-feeders in the Western press who prefer to defame the Chinese as 'intellectual property thieves,' Fallows' line of argument in fact is a form of 'intellectual' backing for that nonsense. When you can collectively say a society isn't up to par in innovations, well, then, whenever it innovates, it must be through theft. I don't think this is what Fallows is setting out to do. However, when nonsense spews which give credence to the defamers, then I am compelled to respond.
(Propaganda in the Western press had a lasting impact on China. For the Tiananmen Protest of 1989, the "reform and opening up" policies under Deng back-stepped when Western governments decided to scale back loans and FDI into China on the grounds the Chinese government were 'butchers.' The 'butcher' and 'massacre' narratives were concocted by the Western press to demonize the Chinese government (an on-going trend, by the way; see collective defamation). Through Wikileaks, we now know the U.S. government knew then what were the actual truth and confirmed China's version of the event. The Western press lied all along, as the following excellent analysis by 龙信明 (original, here) pieces together how they systematically distorted truth to defame. Warning: some graphic images of burnt bodies.)
There are few places in China that seem more burned into the consciousness of typical Westerners than Tiananmen Square, and few events more commonly mentioned than the student protests there of 1989.
One blogger recently noted that "It must be June. Tiananmen Square is being trotted out again." And that would seem to be true. Most of the Western media choose to promote a kind of "anniversary story" of this event, partly creating news by resurrecting an apparently dramatic event, and partly with perhaps some less high-minded purposes.
Tiananmen Square in Beijing as it looks today.
In any case, the stories persist, and perhaps it's because they provide a kind of subversive consolation that leaves us feeling grateful for the superiority of our advanced societies.
PPerhaps it leaves us firm in the knowledge (or at least the conviction) that "such things don't happen here".
It will be a surprise to many readers to learn that "such things" didn't happen in China, either.
It is true that in 1989 China experienced a student protest that culminated in a sit-in (more like a camp-in, actually) in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
But thanks to Wikileaks and other (perhaps brave) Western journalists, we now know that this was all the Square experienced that day.
We now have conclusive and overwhelming documentation that the events in Beijing in 1989 were very different from those reported in the Western press. Not only that, we have substantial evidence that the Chinese Government's version of these events had been true all along.
That story is our subject here. In one sense, it is not an easy story to relate because of the unfortunate emotional baggage Tiananmen Square has carried for more than two decades, and because both China and these events tend to become overwhelmed by ideology.
Where Do We Start? Why not the Beginning?
Let's enter this ideology classroom and begin by posting on the blackboard some facts that are not in dispute. First among them would be that I was not in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
And neither were you.
Hence the subtitle of this editorial. We are both depending on hearsay, on what we have read, on what we have been told and, more importantly, on what we have chosen to believe.
This leads us to another fact that is not in dispute – this one being that you don't "know" what happened in Tiananmen Square. It's true you can make the same claim about me, but right now we're talking about you.
You have no personal knowledge of the events of that day. You don't know what happened, because you weren't there. Everything you have is hearsay. You may have watched the news on that day or read newspaper articles, but it's unlikely you have ever met anyone who was actually present and could give you a first-hand account of events.
And, from whatever information you've acquired, you will have chosen to "take sides". If you're a Westerner, you have most likely chosen to believe that many terrible things happened that day.
But to do this properly, let's separate your choice to take sides from your hearsay evidence – which as you are aware, would anyway be totally inadmissible in a court of law. Even in your country.
So, on your side of the fence, we have two factors:
(1) I read and heard about a bunch of really bad stuff that happened that day.
(2) I choose to believe that those things were true.
We're going to deal with the first of these. You can do what you want with the second. The first is hearsay evidence that can at least be examined and compared with other sources and an assessment made of credibility. The second is founded on ideology, and ideological debates have no resolution so we won't waste our time there.
What Do We Know For Sure?
Well, one thing we know, though it wasn't widely reported at the time, is that there were two events that occurred in Beijing on June 4, 1989. They were not related.
One was a student protest that involved a sit-in in Tiananmen Square by several thousand university students, and which had lasted for several weeks, finally terminating on June 4.
The other was a worker protest, the origin and detail of which are unimportant for our purposes. But essentially some number of workers was unhappy with their lot in life and with the amount of government attention and support, or lack thereof, which they were receiving. And they arranged their own protest, independently of anything related to the students.
Since these two events occurred simultaneously, and were conflated in the Western mass media reporting of the time, we will have to deal with these simultaneously as well.
The Student Protest
The students and soldiers in Tiananmen Square had no quarrel with each other that day.
Briefly, the students congregated in the Square and were waiting for an opportunity to present various petitions to the government, petitions dealing with government, social policy, idealism.
In fact, all the things that we as students all had on our list of changes we wanted to make in the world.
Since the government did not immediately respond, the students camped in the square and waited.
They brought food, water, tents, blankets, camp stoves – but no toilets. Tiananmen Square, after three weeks, was not a place for the faint of nose.
The government waited patiently enough during that period, but finally gave the students a deadline for evacuation of the Square – June 4.
Soldiers were sent to the Square on the day prior, but these soldiers were carrying no weapons and by all documented reports (including those of the US Embassy in Beijing, thanks to Wikileaks) had only billy sticks.
By all reports, there was no animosity between the students and the soldiers. Neither had a philosophical dispute with the other, nor did they see each other as enemies. In fact, both photos and reports show that the students were protecting the soldiers who were being chased by angry mobs of uninvolved bystanders. You will see some photos later.
The Workers Revolt
These are not students. You can see the burned-out buses in the background. Today, these rioters would be deemed "terrorists".
One fact not in dispute is that a group of workers had barricaded streets in several locations leading to Central Beijing, several kilometers from the city center and also from the Square.
Another fact not in dispute is that several hundreds of people – most of whom were workers, but of whom an undetermined few were students – attended these barricades.
An additional fact is that there was a third group present that to my knowledge has never been clearly identified but which consisted of neither students nor workers.
"Thugs" or "anarchists" might be an appropriate adjective, but adjectives don't help the identification.
To deal with this problem, the government sent in busloads of troops, accompanied by a few APCs – armored personnel carriers, to clear the barricades and re-open the streets to traffic.
Outside a bus, the body of a soldier burned to death by the rioters.
The violence began when this third group decided to attack the soldiers. They were apparently well-prepared, having come armed with Molotov cocktails, and torched several dozen buses – with the soldiers still inside.
They also torched the APCs. You can see the photos. There were many more.
Many soldiers in both types of vehicles escaped, but others did not, and many soldiers burned to death. I personally recall watching the news and seeing the videos of dead soldiers burned to a crisp, one hung by the thugs from a lamppost, others lying in the street or on stairs or sidewalks where they died.
Others were hanging out of the bus windows or the APCs, having only partially escaped before being overcome by the flames.
There are documented reports to tell us that the group of thugs managed to get control of one APC, and drove it through the streets while firing the machine guns on the turret.
That was when the government sent in the tanks and opened fire on these protestors.
Another soldier burned to a crisp. Note the other dead soldier hanging from the flyover.
Government reports and independent media personnel generally claim that a total of 250 to 300 people died in total before the violence subsided.
Many of those dead were soldiers. There was no "massacre" in any sense that this world could be sensibly used.
When police or military are attacked in this way, they will surely use force to defend themselves and cannot be faulted for that.
If you or I were the military commander on the scene and were watching our men being attacked and burned to death, we would have done the same.
From everything I know, I can find no fault here.
We can let ideology interfere with interpretation, and claim that the Chinese military used "excessive force", even in self-defense, but that seems a useless claim. In a number of recent cases in the US, a dozen or more police fired 50, and in one case in Miami, more than 100, bullets into an unarmed man, with the courts later claiming this "was not an excessive use of force". So let's be fair and tar everyone with the same brush.
And in any case, soldiers were being attacked by a violent mob, (today, we call them "terrorists") and were dying horrible deaths. We cannot blame the remaining soldiers for opening fire and killing those who were killing them. And yes, several hundred people died in that event.
A Live, First-Hand Report
Here is an eyewitness report from someone who was there, an exerpt from Tiananmen Moon:
There was a new element I hadn't noticed much of before, young punks decidedly less than student-like in appearance. In the place of headbands and signed shirts with university pins they wore cheap, ill-fitting polyester clothes and loose windbreakers. Under our lights, their eyes gleaming with mischief, they brazenly revealed hidden Molotov cocktails."
Who were these punks in shorts and sandals, carrying petrol bombs? Gasoline is tightly rationed, so they could not have come up with these things spontaneously. Who taught them to make bottle bombs and for whom were the incendiary devices intended?
Editor's Note: As with the student supplies, the Coleman gas stoves, the manuals, instructions, training, strategy and tactics, the logistics and many other elements, there is little question the providers were not domestic Chinese.
Another soldier burned to death, hanging by a cable from the burned-out bus.
Someone shouted that another APC was heading our way. My pace quickened as I approached the stalled vehicle, infected by the toxic glee of the mob, but then I caught myself.
Why was I rushing towards trouble? Because everyone else was? I slowed down to a trot in the wake of a thundering herd of one mass mind. Breaking with the pack, I stopped running.
Someone tossed a Molotov cocktail, setting the APC on fire. Flames spread quickly over the top of the vehicle and spilled onto the pavement. I thought, there's somebody still inside of that, it's not just a machine! There must be people inside.
The throng roared victoriously and moved in closer, enraged faces illuminated in the orange glow. But wait! I thought, there's somebody still inside of that, it's not just a machine!
There must be people inside. This is not man against dinosaur, but man against man!
Someone protectively pulled me away to join a handful of head-banded students who sought to exert some control. Expending what little moral capital his hunger strike signature saturated shirt still exerted, he spoke up for the soldier.
"Let the man out," he cried. "Help the soldier, help him get out!" The agitated congregation was in no mood for mercy. Angry, blood-curdling voices ricocheted around us. "Kill the mother fucker!" one said.
Then another voice, even more chilling than the first screamed, "He is not human, he is a thing." "Kill it, kill it!" shouted bystanders, bloody enthusiasm now whipped up to a high pitch.
"Stop! Don't hurt him!" Meng pleaded, leaving me behind as he tried to reason with the vigilantes. "Stop, he is just a soldier!"
He is not human, kill him, kill him!" said a voice. "Get back, get back!" someone screamed at the top of his lungs. "Leave him alone, the soldiers are not our enemy!"
After the limp bodies of the soldiers were put into an ambulance, the thugs attacked the ambulance, almost ripping off the rear doors in an attempt to remove the burned soldier and finish him off. After that, charred bodies of soldiers were hung from a lamp post, and a large amount of ammunition was taken from the APC.
From a Chinese Government Report on the Worker's Riot
Rioters blocked military and other vehicles before they smashed and burned them. They also seized guns, ammunition and transceivers. Several rioters seized an armoured car and fired its guns as they drove it along the street. Rioters also assaulted civilian installations and public buildings. Several rioters even drove a public bus loaded with gasoline drums towards the Tiananmen gatetower in an attempt to set fire to it.
When a military vehicle suddenly broke down on Chang'An Avenue, rioters surrounded it and crushed the driver with bricks. The rioters savagely beat and killed many soldiers and officers. At Chongwenmen, a soldier was thrown down from the flyover and burned alive. At Fuchengmen, a soldier's body was hung upside down on the overpass balustrade after he had been killed. Near a cinema, an officer was beaten to death, and his body strung up on a burning bus.
Over 1,280 vehicles were burned or damaged in the rebellion, including over 1,000 military trucks, more than 60 armoured cars, over 30 police cars, over 120 public buses and trolley buses and over 70 motor vehicles of other kinds.
The martial law troops, having suffered heavy casualties before being forced to fire into the air to clear the way forward. During the counter-attack, some rioters were killed, some onlookers were hit by stray bullets and some wounded or killed by armed ruffians. According to reliable statistics, more than 3,000 civilians were wounded and over 200, including 36 college students, were killed. As well, more than 6,000 law officers and soldiers were injured and scores of them killed.
Back to the Students
Students link arms to hold back angry crowds from chasing a group of retreating soldiers. Photo: AP Photo/Mark Avery
The gunfire could be heard in the distance from Tiananmen Square, but there were no credible reports of gunfire from within the Square itself.
And in any case, as mentioned above, the soldiers in the Square were not armed. They were sent to keep order, not to kill young people who were totally non-violent themselves.
The reports tell us discussions were held between the students and the soldiers at repeated times during the evening and throughout the night.
Almost all of the students were persuaded to leave the Square during the evening, and the small remainder left the following morning.
There is overwhelming documented evidence that no violence occurred in the Square, that no students were killed, and that there never was any "Tiananmen Square Massacre".
There were reports of sporadic gunfire later the following morning around the perimeter of the square, but that was after all the students had already left, and the cause of that gunfire has not been determined.
Tanks and bulldozers did enter the Square the following morning, flattening all the tents and rubbish that had piled up during the previous three weeks, pushing the garbage into huge piles and setting them afire. This was the apparent origin of claims that "thousands of students" were crushed by tanks streaming through the Square, but this was just the clean-up crew and the students were long gone when the tanks and other heavy machinery arrived.
From a Chinese Government Report on the Student Sit-in
At 1:30 AM on June 4, the Beijing municipal government and the martial law headquarters issued an emergency notice asking all students and other citizens to leave Tiananmen Square. The notice was broadcast repeatedly for well over three hours over loudspeakers. The students in the Square, after discussion among themselves, sent representatives to the troops to express their willingness to withdraw from the square and this was approved by the troops.
At about 5 AM several thousand students left the square in an orderly manner through a wide corridor in the southeastern part of the square vacated by the troops, carrying their own banners and streamers. Those who refused to leave were forced to do so by the soldiers. By 5:30 a.m., the clearing operation of the square had been completed. During the whole operation not a single person was killed.
But What About All the Rumors, the News Reports?
There were in fact news reports at the time, confirming that there never was any "Tiananmen Square Massacre", no "crackdown", and that no students died. One of these was written by Nicholas Kristoff of the NYT, but the Times buried his report on an inside page and instead ran with the more exciting front-page version of tanks crushing thousands of students and gunfire killing thousands more.
Many foreign reporters filed live reports directly from the Square, stating clearly that, while gunfire could be heard in the distance, there was no violence in the Square either by or toward the students. All reports from the Square were that the event ended peacefully.
However, there was a large group of foreign (mostly US) journalists reporting "live from the Beijing hotel", and describing the view through their windows of all the gunfire, the deaths, the piles of student bodies. Unfortunately, and as other foreign reporters pointed out later, Tiananmen Square cannot be seen from the Beijing Hotel.
Those live reports were fabricated by journalists who apparently believed something was happening, lacked the courage to go and see for themselves, and who told their editors the most likely events according to their convictions and imaginations.
Fabricating facts and sensationalising events. It attracts viewers, sells advertising, and fits in well with the agenda. Truth is apparently dispensible.
CNN's Mike Chinoy at the time played a "tape" of sporadic gunfire which was edited and condensed to a few seconds to give the impression that it was rapid and continuous.
Many reporters and journalists, including Spain's TV channel that had a film crew in the Square for the entire event, have all denied the veracity of the reports of gunfire, violence and student deaths in Tiananmen Square.
In a well-researched 1998 article in the Columbia Journalism Review titled "Reporting the Myth of Tiananmen and the Price of a Passive Press," the former Washington Post bureau chief in Beijing, Jay Mathews, tracks down what he calls the dramatic accounts that buttressed the myth of a student massacre. According to him:
"A USA Today article (June 26, page 7A) called Tiananmen the place "where pro-democracy demonstrators were gunned down." The Wall Street Journal (June 26, page A10) described "the Tiananmen Square massacre" where armed troops ordered to clear demonstrators from the square killed "hundreds or more." The New York Post (June 25, page 22) said the square was "the site of the student slaughter."
"The problem is this: as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square. A few people may have been killed by random shooting on streets near the square, but all verified eyewitness accounts say that the students who remained in the square when troops arrived were allowed to leave peacefully. (Some people), most of them workers and passersby, did die that night, but in a different place and under different circumstances."
You can read this excellent article titled "The Myth of Tiananmen: And the Price of a Passive Press": Click Here.
He notes a widely disseminated piece by an alleged Chinese university student writing in the Hong Kong press immediately after the incident, describing machine guns mowing down students in front of the square monument (somehow Reuter's Earnshaw chatting quietly with the students in front of the same monument failed to notice this.)
Mathews adds: "The New York Times gave this version prominent display June 12, just a week after the event, but no evidence was ever found to confirm the account or verify the existence of the alleged witness. And for good reason, I suspect. The mystery report was very likely the work of U.S. and British black information authorities ever keen to plant anti-Beijing stories in unsuspecting media."
Earnshaw notes how a photo of a Chinese soldier strung up and burned to a crisp was withheld by Reuters. Dramatic Chinese photos of solders incinerated or hung from overpasses have yet to be shown by Western media. Photos of several dead students on a bicycle rack at the barricade are more convincing.
Here is a link to an article on this site, titled "Birth of a Massacre Myth: How the West Manufactured an Event that Never Occurred". It contains much detailed information on the source of the rumors and false claims. You can Click Here.
They All Knew at the Time That the Reports Were not True
In addition, and I must say, to the great surprise of many of us, the US government, the NYT and all the US and foreign media, knew at the time that there was never any student massacre in Tiananmen Square. The reason we now know this truth is Wikileaks, who published all the cables sent from the US embassy in Beijing to Washington that night, confirming that there was no violence in the Square and no massacre of anybody.
But that knowledge didn't prevent the US and other Right-Wing governments, dozens of US, UK, German, Canadian, Australian politicians, and all the Right-Wing media, from repeating this story endlessly for more than 20 years. In fact, the NYT features an annual "celebration" of its version of the "Tiananmen Square Massacre" in what can only be a deliberate and persistent attempt to perpetuate the fraud.
For all those years, the NYT and others knew the story was a lie, but they repeated it nonetheless. And not simply "newspapers" or TV stations, but the individuals doing the writing and reporting, all knew, or had to know, the stories were a lie.
Here is a link to another article titled "US Embassy confirms China's version of Tiananmen Square events: Cables obtained by Wikileaks confirm China's account". To read it, you can Click Here.
For a short period, the Western media downgraded the 1989 student protests in Beijing from The Tiananmen Square Massacre to The Beijing Incident. But then, despite this knowledge, the media have once again started to impart conspiracy and horror into Tiananmen Square and characterize it as a massacre of students.
This falsification of history, which appears deliberate since the facts have become well known, deludes a new generation and prejudices it against China. The distortion of the happenings within Tiananmen Square reduces the media's credibility and leaves its open to charges of grossly misrepresenting significant current events for cheap political gain.
And as Always, Thank You, America
It seems plausible that the student protests in China during the late 1980s may, at their origin, have been spontaneously generated, but there is no shortage of evidence – facts not in dispute – that the entire student movement was quickly hijacked by the US.
It's always the same. Whenever we find destabilisation, upheaval, dicontent, an opportunity for chaos, we will always find the CIA. Thank you, America.
There is little reason to question the assertion that a major part of US foreign policy then, as today, lay in attempts to destabilise China and perhaps instigate a massive revolution that would open the door to US influence and control.
The student democracy movement was a large part of that strategy. And, though evidence is thin, it begins to appear that the worker's revolt may also have had "outside help".
For one, gasoline was rationed and not easily available. And who provided the training and organisation, the instructions for the Molotov cocktails – which were unheard of in China before that time.
Many of the students with whom I spoke, who were actually present at the Square, have told me of the supplies provided for them through some agency of the US government.
They particularly mentioned the countless hundreds of Coleman camp stoves – which at the time were far too expensive for students in China to acquire – and the well-established supply lines of these and other items.
And all university students of that day will tell you of the influence of the VOA – the Voice of America – and the picture it painted of "freedom and democracy".
They tell of listening to the VOA in their dorms, late into the night, building in their imaginations a happy world of freedom and light.
The Voice of America. "The world's most trusted source for news and information from the United States and around the world."
They will also tell you that the VOA was broadcasting to the students 24 hours a day from their Hong Kong station during the weeks of the sit-in at Tiananmen Square, offering comfort and encouragement, provoking, giving advice on strategy and tactics.
And, in a much more dangerous and mean-spirited fashion, asking rhetorical questions that would almost surely lead young students to the wrong conclusions and incite them to inappropriate (and perhaps even fatal) actions.
One of the original participants in the student sit-in recently made this post:
"We settled down and continued with our study. We dated, found our loved ones, and many sought to go abroad. By the time we graduated there was almost no discussion about the student movement and we no longer listened to the VOA."
"One thing I have been kept thinking was the role of the VOA. Many students were the fans of the radio station before, during and shortly after the student movement. Even when we were on the square many students were listening to their programs as if only they could tell us what was going on.
I remember at one stage it said the PLA stationed in Beijing was in a defensive position and then it asked some questions such as "Who are they waiting for and why are they in a defensive position?" I immediately drew a conclusion that there was a rebelling PLA force coming to support us!! Until I double checked with my cousin I realized how stupid I was to draw that conclusion."
In case you don't know, the VOA is funded and operated by the NED – the National Endowment for Democracy – which is a front company funded by the CIA that does much of that agency's dirty work not involving actual killing – although sometimes it does that, too. The NED was founded as a vehicle to avoid the CIA's increasingly bad reputation.
Allen Weintein, one of the founders of the NED explained to the Washington Post in 1991, "A lot of what we do now was done covertly by the CIA 25 years ago." And like the CIA and USAID, the NED and a number of similar organizations – including the VOA – receive funding from the US Congress.
In the end, the students abandoned not only the Square, but both their revolutionary imaginations and the VOA as well.
The irony is the imminent death of Voice of America, as far as China is concerned. The US has finally realised the futility of broadcasting propaganda into China and this year (2011) the Obama Administration is planning to shut down VOA broadcasts from Hong Kong.
And not before time.
Revolutions Need Leaders. Who Were They, and Where are They?
John Pomfret, at the time an AP correspondent in Beijing with a point of view. Now a reporter for the Washington Post.
There were five or six primary leaders of the Tianamen Square sit-in, those who led the organisation of students in universities across the country, who planned the demonstration in the Square and who pushed hard for a "death before retreat" martyrdom attitude in the students.
However, these leaders sensibly chose a "retreat before death" policy for themselves.
They were spirited out of China, first to Hong Kong, then to Taiwan. And very shortly thereafter were in the US.
Some chose intermediate countries and some didn't. In those days, travel to Hong Kong was not quick and easy as today, so some clever logistics were necessary on the part of their handlers.
Several of these "student leaders" appear to have been rewarded handsomely for their efforts to destabilise their country, with prestigious university degrees, good jobs, and sometimes CIA (NED) salaries for simply continuing to protest.
The "general commander" of the student protesters, Chai Ling fled China after completing her handiwork in Tiananmen Square. As a reward by the US for her destabilisation efforts in China she was given an honorary degree in political science from Princeton university and a job with the management consultancy of Bain & Co.
She has since converted to Christianity and spends her time with a so-called "charity", funded by the CIA-controlled NED, called "All Girls Allowed", as a forum to complain about China's one-child policy.
China has stated that a recision of the one-child policy would result in an additional 300 million births within a decade. Ms. Chai Ling informs us that if China rescinds this policy, she will undertake to provide, at CIA and NED expense, the full cost of not only feeding and clothing these 300 million extra children, but also providing for their education and health care as well.
No greater love has one for her fellow man than . . .
Alan Pessin, bearded Voice of America correspondent in Beijing. Ignored the martial law restrictions and continued to contact the ringleaders to pass on information, providing both instigation and asylum while dispatching many distorted and false reports.
After the protests, Wu'er Kaixi fled first to France and then to the US where the government rewarded him with a free pass to Harvard university.
This man was one of the conributors to the stories of student deaths in Tiananmen Square, claiming to have seen hundreds (or thousands) of students mowed down with machine guns.
He was quickly discredited by foreign journalists who confirmed that he was seen on the far side of Beijing at the time he claimed to have witnessed events in the square.
Hou Dejian was a Taiwanese singer who joined the protests in Tiananmen Square and then helped to broker the truce which allowed students in the square to evacuate safely. He was subsequently deported back to Taiwan and now writes screenplays in New Zealand.
According to A Government Report:
ln violation of the martial law decrees operative in parts of Beijing. John E. Pomfret. an AP correspondent in Beijing, kept frequent contact with the ringleaders, passing on information and providing asylum. The photo shows John E. Pomfret (middle) and Wang Dan (first left) together.
Alan W. Pessin, a correspondent of the Voice of America in Beijing, ignored the martial law restrictions and not only continued illegal VOA news coverage, but dispatched distorted reports and spread further rumours inciting turmoil and rebellion. The Photo shows Alan Pessin (with the beard) hiding himself among the crowd.
After the Government declared martial law, Chai Ling and the protest organizers were still distributing leaflets inciting armed rebellion against the Government, calling upon their followers to "organize armed forces and oppose the Communist Party and its government", even making a list of names of people they wanted to eliminate. They claimed they would never yield and "would fight to the finish" with the government, scheming until past the end, to provoke a bloody incident in Tiananmen Square.
Back to the Hearsay
Just so it doesn't go unsaid, I believe my hearsay is better than your hearsay. I live in China and, by a happy accident of fate, have access to, and constant contact with, many hundreds of people who were university students in China during the period in question. I've spoken to more than a few of them at length about the events in Tiananmen Square, and they confirm my comments and the content of the articles linked above.
When we began this exercise, we had two factors on your side of the fence:
(1) I read and heard about a bunch of really bad stuff that happened that day. (2) I choose to believe that those things were true.
I've tried to deal with the first of these, with the presentation of a small part of the (by now) huge volume of evidence confirming that nothing other than a student protest occurred in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. You can still do what you want with the second part – your own ideology. You will believe what you will.
Epilogue
It has been 22 years since the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen incident. While the Western media has over the years toned down this 'massacre' myth, they are still using vague language to keep the 'massacre' narrative alive. For example, even NPR's recent anniversary piece echoed an Associated Press article, described it as "the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement."
Now that Wikileaks and other documentation have confirmed what the Chinese government has always said – that no massacre occurred at the Square – the NYT, the UK Telegraph and other Western media are instead spinning this as, "the soldiers fired upon the protesters OUTSIDE of the Square".
With declassified U.S. government documents and other Westerner accounts, Gregory Clark in his well researched 2008 article published in the Japan Times, "Birth of a massacre myth," explained how the New York Times and other Western media were still pushing that narrative despite all evidence concluding otherwise.
Recent Wikileaked U.S. embassy cables also showed the U.S. government knew there was no bloodshed in Tiananmen Square. Apparently, condemning China is okay while lying along with the media.
Westerners are hopelessly trapped in a view of the world constructed for them by their media. As Martin Jacques said, the West have not had to understand the developing world, because they have the might to not care. The hard truth for the Chinese from this tragedy is that progress comes from stability.
With Tunisia, Egypt, and other Arab states in turmoil, the Western media have been keen to play up a possible 'Jasmine Revolution' in China. I can see people like Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times or the BBC journalist who got dragged away from Wangfujing think their careers will be catapulted into the stratosphere if indeed a 1989-scale protest breaks out in China.
Or for people like Jon Huntsman, an opportunity to position himself in the midst of it to maximize his credentials back home for his 2012 ambitions.
Above comments extracted from an editorial at Hidden Harmonies
Some Excellent Reading: More Information, Sources, Documentation
June Fourth, 1989: Another Look (From Hidden Harmonies) Read Here.
Birth of a Massacre Myth: How the West Manufactured an Event that Never Occurred Read Here.
The Myth of Tiananmen: And the Price of a Passive Press Read Here.
US Embassy confirms China's version of Tiananmen Square events: Wikileaks Cables confirm China Government's account Read Here.
Tiananmen Square protesters: where are they now?: Benefitting from CIA Financing Read Here.
UK Telegraph article "No Bloodshed in Tiananmen Square" Original Article.
In an article titled Pedalling Prosperity, The Economist correspondents use an elaborate metaphor of penny-farthing to disagree with China bears. They point out a common misconception among observers that China is an export-led economy:
The contribution of foreign demand to China's growth has always been exaggerated, and it is now shrinking. It is investment, not exports, that leads China's economy. Spending on plant, machinery, buildings and infrastructure accounted for about 48% of China's GDP in 2011. Household consumption, supposedly the sole end and purpose of economic activity, accounts for only about a third of GDP.
The state's influence over the allocation of capital is the source of much waste, but it helps keep investment up when private confidence is down. And although China's repressed banking system is inefficient, it is also resilient because most of its vast pool of depositors have nowhere else to go.
Yet this Economist article is not exactly bullish on China's future economic progress either. It indicated that China's growth could slow down due to its aging demography. China's working-age percentage of the population fell. The article voiced concerns over China's investment-led economy:
A disproportionate share of China's investment is made by state-owned enterprises and, in recent years, by infrastructure ventures under the control of provincial or municipal authorities but not on their balance sheets. This investment has often been clumsy.
Hong Kong bureau chief of The New York Times Keith Bradsher reports on the same debate with the case study of Xi'an, a city in northwestern China. Bradsher writes that productive state investments are increasingly scarce:
…with the country having finished building much of its infrastructure, it is having a harder time finding further projects that can pass cost-benefit analyses.
Still, one of his sources argued that investment-led economy has its advantages for growth:
"When you've got state banks lending to state enterprises to implement the state's five-year plan, you don't have a lot of downside to investment," said Paul Gruenwald, a former International Monetary Fund official in Hong Kong who is now the chief Asia economist at ANZ, one of Australia's biggest banks.
As of May 29, the following search terms are blocked on Weibo (not including the "search for user" function):
Related to the case of Yunnan serial killer Zhang Yongming: Several sources have reported that when Zhang Yongming couldn't finish eating the flesh of his victims, he sold it in the market as ostrich meat. On April 25, 19-year-old Han Yao of Jinning, Yunnan suddenly went missing. His case has been the key to the mystery of missing children in the area.
salted meat (腌肉)
ostrich meat (鸵鸟肉)
thigh meat (大腿肉)
strip the flesh and bury the bones (剔肉埋骨)
skeleton (尸骨)
eat + victim (吃+受害者)
eat + juvenile (吃+少年)
Han Yao (韩耀)
chain of missing people (连环失踪案)
See more sensitive words related to the Zhang Yongming case from May 25 here.
Note: All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results. CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search.
CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese's latest sensitive words post.
It was filed on behalf of the 80-20 National Asian-American Educational Foundation, the National Federation of Indian American Associations, the Indian American Forum for Political Education, the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. (The latter group focuses on discrimination against Jewish Americans, and the brief argues that today's admissions policies have the same impact on Asian-American applicants as previous generations' policies had on Jewish applicants.)
The book suggested that private institutions essentially admit black students with SAT scores 310 points below those of comparable white students. And the book argued that Asian-American applicants need SAT scores 140 points higher than those of white students to stand the same chances of admission. The brief also quotes from accounts of guidance counselors and others (including this account in Inside Higher Ed) talking about widely held beliefs in high schools with many Asian-American students that they must have higher academic credentials than all others to gain admission to elite institutions.
In his tenth novel They Eat Puppies, Don't They?, Christopher Buckley plays off of stereotypes of China to create a satirical portrait of U.S-China relations. Buckley explores the worst case scenario with inspiration from the satire movie Dr. Strangelove:
It was hard, really, to put any kind of definite face on China. The old Soviet Union, with its squat, warty leaders banging their shoes on the U.N. podium and threatening thermonuclear extinction, all those vodka-swollen, porcine faces squinting from under sable hats atop Lenin's Tomb as nuclear missiles rolled by like floats in a parade from hell — those Commies at least looked scary. But on the rare occasion when the nine members of China's Politburo Standing Committee, the men who ruled 1.3 billion people — one-fifth of the world's population — lined up for a group photo, they looked like a delegation of identical, overpaid dentists.
Janet Maslin of the New York Times found the Chinese aspects of the novel disappointing: "Mr. Buckley's satirical insights about American-Chinese relations were worth looking forward to, but they will have to stay that way." She still recommends the book for Buckley fans:
To be fair, Mr. Buckley's vocabularic gifts remain consummate, especially when it comes to elegant Latin versions of less elegant English lingo. So perhaps the problem lies with his decision to depict Sino-American relations as creakily hostile. There are characters in "They Eat Puppies, Don't They?" who regret the winning of the cold war, and they don't entirely seem to be joking.
Unlike 'Thank You for Smoking,' which managed the neat trick of pulling us closer to the lobbyists it satirized, "They Eat Puppies, Don't They?" begins to lag as it drifts further from Bird, bouncing from Beijing to Washington, from meeting to television chat-fest to one-sided phone conversation.
Assisting in — and quickly commandeering — this [China-targeting] effort is Angel Templeton, "tall, blond, buff, leggy, miniskirted" and the very public face of a Washington think tank called the Institute for Continuing Conflict. ("We're not," she coyly explains, "really into deterrence at ICC.")
Editor's Note: The Word of the Week comes from China Digital Space's Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and frequently encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China's online "resistance discourse," used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness.
If you are interested in participating in this project by submitting and/or translating terms, please contact the CDT editors at CDT [at] chinadigitaltimes [dot] net.
"Ai Weiwei" and "love the future" were blocked on Weibo in April 2011.
"Love the future" is a coded reference to Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei (艾未未) that came into use after Ai's detention in April 2011. Ai's surname sounds the same as the word "love" in Chinese, and his given name "Weiwei" (未未) can be converted into the word "future" (未来) by adding two small strokes to the second character. After the phrase "love the future" became a cipher for Ai, "future" was for a time a sensitive word on the Chinese Internet (see here).
One of the designers behind the iconic Bird's Nest Stadium, Ai was prominent in the art world long before he became a thorn in the Chinese government's side. He started to rankle the authorities in May 2008 when he lead a project to collect the names of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake. Active on Twitter, he commented there in February 2011 about the calls for a "jasmine revolution" in China modeled after Egypt's. Visits from the police and the destruction of his Shanghai studio in late 2010, combined with the tension in Beijing brought by the Arab Spring, lead Ai to attempt to leave for Hong Kong on April 3. He was detained while boarding his flight and disappeared for 81 days. Once back home and under surveillance, he didn't stay silent for long.
New Yorker China correspondent Evan Osnos profiled Ai in 2010. Edward Wong of the New York Times wrote an account of Ai's detention on May 26, 2012.
Editor David Wertime joins BBC World News to discuss the likely impact of Sina Weibo's new user agreement, which was implemented on May 28, 2012. You can read Tea Leaf Nation's complete analysis of the likely impact of the agreement here.
On May 25, the official Weibo account of the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong published its "Thoughts on Reading the U.S. Human Rights Report in the Style of the People's Daily." The humorous and sarcastic tone of the comments caused large scale re-posting and commenting. One sentence that particularly garnered attention– "Why do you always delete me?"–earned the consulate the nickname "American Imperialist Acting Cute." Soon after, the official Weibo account of the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai joined the cuteness brigade:
@USConsulateShanghai: Yeah, One World, One Dream! //@usainhkmacau: Thoughts on Reading the U.S. Human Rights Report in the Style of the People's Daily #1: "Developing democracy and guaranteeing human rights have always been the goals and values of Chinese Communist Party members." (Huh! All this bickering and our goals are democracy and human rights. There's no conflict!)
@usainhkmacau: Thoughts on Reading the U.S. Human Rights Report in the Style of the People's Daily #2: "We should actively participate in and promote democracy and human rights through political dialogue. Because of each individual country's different social structure, level of development and traditions, we understand the concepts of democracy and human rights differently. This is totally normal. The key is to seek common ground in spite of the differences." (Then why do you always delete me?)
@usainhkmacau: Thoughts on Reading the U.S. Human Rights Report in the Style of the People's Daily #3: "Democracy and human rights have long been pursued by all people. They are important qualities and signs by which the development of human civilization is measured." (Then what are we fighting over? We are all on the same page!)
Below is a selection of netizen comments on the consulate's thoughts. Read more from CDT Chinese here. Translation by Little Bluegill.
Ambiguous_Yu: To be deleted you means you are in their hearts. 若即若离_豫：删你证明心里有你。
piggyogre_Jr: I strongly condemn the American imperialist attempt to interfere in my county's domestic affairs by acting cute. piggyogre_Jr：强烈谴责美帝通过恶意卖萌来干扰我国内政~
DuduCola: Don't you know how to punctuate? Political dialogue means you can't speak unless your politics are correct ["dialogue" (duìhuà 对话) becomes "correct, speak" (duì, huà 对, 话)]. If your politics are not right to begin with, of course your comments will be deleted. 都都可乐：你不会断句了吧？政治对，话，意思是政治上正确的，才能说话。你从一开始就政治不正确，说的话当然被删掉了。
EscapeFish: I'd like the consulate in Hong Kong to add it up. How many of your posts have been harmonized in all? 漏网知渔：请驻港领事馆统计，到底被和谐了多少条围脖？？
BorntoBirth: A little deletion is good for your health. 生而为人生生人：删删更健康
PeopleWantJustice: Deleting Weibo posts is something a temporary worker would do. What has this to do with the glorious Party and government? …Anti-revolutionary rumor-mongering! Delete! 人欲即天理：删帖的事情，是临时工干的，和伟大的党，伟大的政府有什么关系？…反革命造谣犯！删！
PasForty: …Let's just go ahead and delete this post as well… PasForty：…再说把你这条也删了…
IAmLongSpear: The People's Daily Online has said, "That was deleted by Sina, it has nothing to do with us." 我是长矛：人民网说了:"那是新浪删的, 不关我的事。"
OldTiansField: If the consulate's posts are fanned [bèi shān (被搧) homonym for "deleted" (被删)], all it can do is act cute… 老田的田：领事馆被搧得只好卖萌了。。。
LiKedian: Quick, everyone come look! @usainhkmacau is facing off against @PeoplesDaily! @BeijingDaily @HuXijin @SimaNan hurry and join the fight! 李可点：大家快来看啊，@美國駐港總領事館 和@人民网 PK了，@北京日报 @胡锡进 @司马南 快来助阵
HuZhimingviking: Constant struggle without breakthrough is a long-held tradition of the Chinese Communist Party. 鬍綕眀viking: 一直在奋斗，从未有突破，中国共产党的优良传统。
On May 25, the official Weibo account of the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong published its "Thoughts on Reading the U.S. Human Rights Report in the Style of the People's Daily." The humorous and sarcastic tone of the comments caused large scale re-posting and commenting. One sentence that particularly garnered attention– "Why do you always delete me?"–earned the consulate the nickname "American Imperialist Acting Cute." Soon after, the official Weibo account of the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai joined the cuteness brigade:
@USConsulateShanghai: Yeah, One World, One Dream! //@usainhkmacau: Thoughts on Reading the U.S. Human Rights Report in the Style of the People's Daily #1: "Developing democracy and guaranteeing human rights have always been the goals and values of Chinese Communist Party members." (Huh! All this bickering and our goals are democracy and human rights. There's no conflict!)
@usainhkmacau: Thoughts on Reading the U.S. Human Rights Report in the Style of the People's Daily #2: "We should actively participate in and promote democracy and human rights through political dialogue. Because of each individual country's different social structure, level of development and traditions, we understand the concepts of democracy and human rights differently. This is totally normal. The key is to seek common ground in spite of the differences." (Then why do you always delete me?)
@usainhkmacau: Thoughts on Reading the U.S. Human Rights Report in the Style of the People's Daily #3: "Democracy and human rights have long been pursued by all people. They are important qualities and signs by which the development of human civilization is measured." (Then what are we fighting over? We are all on the same page!)
Below is a selection of netizen comments on the consulate's thoughts. Read more from CDT Chinese here. Translation by Little Bluegill.
Ambiguous_Yu: To be deleted you means you are in their hearts. 若即若离_豫：删你证明心里有你。
piggyogre_Jr: I strongly condemn the American imperialist attempt to interfere in my country's domestic affairs by acting cute. piggyogre_Jr：强烈谴责美帝通过恶意卖萌来干扰我国内政~
DuduCola: Don't you know how to punctuate? Political dialogue means you can't speak unless your politics are correct ["dialogue" (duìhuà 对话) becomes "correct, speak" (duì, huà 对, 话)]. If your politics are not right to begin with, of course your comments will be deleted. 都都可乐：你不会断句了吧？政治对，话，意思是政治上正确的，才能说话。你从一开始就政治不正确，说的话当然被删掉了。
EscapeFish: I'd like the consulate in Hong Kong to add it up. How many of your posts have been harmonized in all? 漏网知渔：请驻港领事馆统计，到底被和谐了多少条围脖？？
BorntoBirth: A little deletion is good for your health. 生而为人生生人：删删更健康
PeopleWantJustice: Deleting Weibo posts is something a temporary worker would do. What has this to do with the glorious Party and government? …Anti-revolutionary rumor-mongering! Delete! 人欲即天理：删帖的事情，是临时工干的，和伟大的党，伟大的政府有什么关系？…反革命造谣犯！删！
PasForty: …Let's just go ahead and delete this post as well… PasForty：…再说把你这条也删了…
IAmLongSpear: The People's Daily Online has said, "That was deleted by Sina, it has nothing to do with us." 我是长矛：人民网说了:"那是新浪删的, 不关我的事。"
OldTiansField: If the consulate's posts are fanned [bèi shān (被搧) homonym for "deleted" (被删)], all it can do is act cute… 老田的田：领事馆被搧得只好卖萌了。。。
LiKedian: Quick, everyone come look! @usainhkmacau is facing off against @PeoplesDaily! @BeijingDaily @HuXijin @SimaNan hurry and join the fight! 李可点：大家快来看啊，@美國駐港總領事館 和@人民网 PK了，@北京日报 @胡锡进 @司马南 快来助阵
HuZhimingviking: Constant struggle without breakthrough is a long-held tradition of the Chinese Communist Party. 鬍綕眀viking: 一直在奋斗，从未有突破，中国共产党的优良传统。
Forget the marauding aliens, the Men in Black may soon have their hands full with an intellectual property infringement lawsuit…in China.
Chinese gizmo website iGeek claims to have found ironclad evidence that MIB stole the idea for its futuristic space wheely car/bike thingamabob from a patented Chinese invention. At least, that's the technical term; just look at the embedded picture. The lettering on the bike in the final image literally reads "Patented Product. Unique in the World."
"MIB3 nakedly rip off our country's patented technology, [and we] have the picture to prove it. The first two pictures show screenshots of the currently popular MIB3 showing in theatres. The pictures below that, taken by netizens in Qingdao in 2007 [yes that's where they brew that famous beer; it's also in Shandong, where CGC is from], show an exquisite specimen of Chinese workmanship. This is patented technology that is unique in the world!" [1]
At least one netizen, however, has come out in defense of the Men in Black. @palm_pre2 tweets, "This kind of device has been around for a long time…just go look at the sci-fi films from a few decades ago…[the device's makers] are lucky they don't get sued for infringement themselves." [2]
SINCE I arrived in the United States on May 19, people have asked me, "What do you want to do here?" I have come here to study temporarily, not to seek political asylum. And while I pursue my studies, I hope that the Chinese government and the Communist Party will conduct a thorough investigation of the lawless punishment inflicted on me and my family over the past seven years.
I asked for such an investigation while I was hospitalized in Beijing, after I had left the refuge of the United States Embassy and American officials negotiated my reunification with my family. High officials from the Chinese government assured me that a thorough and public investigation would take place and that they would inform me of the results. I hope that this promise will be honored. But the government has often failed to fulfill similar commitments. I urge the government and people of the United States and other democratic countries to insist that the Chinese government make timely progress in this matter.
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