China: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back ..."

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

"Just when you thought it was safe to go back..." on the internet, see real news, participate in civil society by demonstrating, talking to foreigners, and demand accountibility, in a meaningful way......

"China tightens media limits loosened in quake" "China's new propaganda tactics" L.A. Times 6/5/08 [[email protected]]

I think we are lucky in Los Angeles to currently have a number of excellent reporters covering the Far East for the L.A. Times...Mark Magnier, Ching-ching Ni, Don Lee, Barbara Demick for China, and Bruce Wallace covering Korea and Japan.

Mark Magnier's latest report from China, dateline Dujiangyan, reports that "..China has begun rolling back many of the media and online freedoms that were permitted in the immediate aftermath of last month's earthquake". Foreign and domestic reporters are facing new tight restrictions and "...web discussion groups have seen postings deleted" and "...internet filtering has been stepped up".

The central government has issued censorship rules; no discussion about school construction, no discussion about the speed of the government's response efforts, and no discussion about whether the government knew a quake was coming and failed to warn the people. "...There are again increased crackdowns on public protest." The central authorities are also cracking down on the first real reemergence of investigative reporting since 1989, repressed in the aftermath of the Beijing massacre, except for a few fits and starts that were also quickly repressed.

The government is now blocking access to collapsed schools and "...fanning recent comments by actress Sharon Stone that the May 12 earthquake was the result of 'bad karma' linked to its Tibet policy, has helped divert attention from the school corruption issue."

There is apparently a difference in the repressive approaches between the "...somewhat reform-oriented State Council..." and "...those in the more hard-line propaganda ministry .." that favor tighter control.

"'The school issue is very sensitive, and they're trying to put a lid on it,' U.C. Berkeley' Xiao [Xiao Qiang, Director of the China Internet Project at UC Berkeley] said. 'But the issue is too big. They can't put it back in the box'".

This is indeed a sad commentary on the paranoia of an authoritarian government who for the first time was receiving positive press from its own people and the world.[Edit by="mwhittemore on Jun 6, 3:47:08 PM"][/Edit]
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