Tag Archives: Politics

The elephant in the newsroom

Imagethief was interested to read in yesterday’s People’s Daily Online a brief articlereporting on a conference to address the problems that China’s international news organizations face in reaching foreign audiences. The discussion focused on how China is portrayed by services … Continue reading

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The disappointing silence from the top

It’s been nearly two weeks since representatives of Cisco, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google testified before the House Subcommittee on Human Rights about their various entanglements with China. As expected, after blowing hot in the run-up to the testimony, coverage has … Continue reading

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Congress to grill US net firms on China

The US government has begun to take note of what American Internet firms are doing in China. A report in CNET’s News.com from technology policy journalist Declan McCullagh (also now picked up by Rebecca MacKinnon, Asiapundit, etc.) says that two … Continue reading

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Harbin aftermath: Government vows to thoroughly scape all goats

Catastrophes are fun to watch, but not nearly so much fun as the aftermath of kicking, screaming and recriminations as blame is liberally heaped and fingers pointed. Katrina lasted only a day, after all, but the operatic fallout has reverberated … Continue reading

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Van Nguyen died for your sins: Executions as public communication

The Australians were doomed from the start, literally and metaphorically. They were doomed because they misapprehended the nature of capital punishment for drug offenses in Singapore. They thought of it as retribution, or punishment. This is wrong. Drug-offense executions in … Continue reading

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The Harbin water crisis

A couple of days ago, in response to a link I posted to his roundup of articles on the Harbin water crisis ESWN put this comment up on my site: As you are the PR expert, how would you have … Continue reading

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Do you, uh, Yahoo? You’re busted!

Do you, uh, Yahoo? Not, one would hope, if you’re a Chinese dissident or journalist on the wrong side of the authorities. It seems that American technology companies can’t stay out of trouble in China. The last two days has … Continue reading

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Why American tech companies betrayed me, not China

American technology companies are helping China censor the Internet. I am angry and disappointed — probably more than the Chinese people actually affected. Yet, in a world full where corporate amorality is often taken for granted, why does this bother … Continue reading

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The abstraction of diplomacy and the reality of rocks through windows

From my blog reading, some of the widespread conclusions about the ongoing stream of anti-Japanese protests in China are: The nominal grievances, Japan’s textbooks that gloss over culpability for wartime atrocities and generally insufficient post-war contrition, are, in reality, minor. … Continue reading

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In praise of Google in China

The BBC’s website is blocked but many international apartment buildings get BBC World. My colleague was watching the BBC in her Beijing apartment this morning when a report on Google’s agreement to censor key words and sites via its upcoming … Continue reading

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