Results tagged “rebeccamackinnon”

Rebecca MacKinnon, formerly CNN's Beijing bureau chief and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, writes an open letter to President Barack Obama in the Huffington Post, In Talking to China, Remember its People. She encourages the president to adopt a more nuanced view of the Chinese citizenry:

The point is that while these people are not citizens of a democracy, they are by no means an undifferentiated mass of brainwashed drones. Despite often crude censorship of the Internet and state-run media, despite manipulation, intimidation of dissidents and political astro-turfing of the blogosphere by paid commentators, there is no unity of thought in China today. Civic minded citizens manage to hold wide-ranging debates on the Chinese Internet, in living rooms, dormitories, office break rooms, and classrooms about many public issues. Reading the Chinese blogs I've found all kinds of views about you and your new administration. Many are inspired by your personal story and the idea of truly equal opportunity that you represent. Others hope that you will be more forthright and principled on human rights issues than the Bush administration was. Others are very concerned that you will be protectionist in order to help the American people in the short run, and that this will hurt the Chinese people economically. Others lament cynically that no matter what happens, the rich and powerful in both countries will be the relationship's main beneficiaries.

Just as you have used new technology to engage with the American electorate, your China policy can be greatly strengthened if you conduct a real conversation with the Chinese people. Listen as much as you talk; provide a much-needed platform for open discussion. The U.S. embassy in Beijing should build a Chinese-language website modeled after change.gov, focused not just on U.S.-China relations, but on the range of concerns and interests - from environment, to food safety, to factory safety standards, to education and real estate law -- shared by ordinary Chinese and Americans. Some linguistically talented State Department employees should start blogging in Chinese. Open up the comments sections, see how the Chinese blogosphere responds, then respond to them in turn. Translate some of the Chinese conversation into English for Americans to read and react, then translate it back. Sure there will be censorship problems on the Chinese side, but if enough Chinese find the conversation important and relevant to their lives, the censors ultimately won't be able to stop it. Nor should they want to if they're wise - because the resulting conversation would help both governments build a more stable and rational relationship that would truly benefit the people of both countries.

After their great series of stories about the Chinese media last week entitled "Brand China", National Public Radio (NPR) show, On the Media, has done another great story explaining exactly how the Chinese internet works and what role the internet plays in Chinese society. The show includes interviews with Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei and internet specialist, Rebecca MacKinnon, and can be downloaded or streamed for free. Transcripts of the show are also available for free.

Photos from powerprints, beatdrifter, and David Feng.

Photo of the Mont Blanc superstore on Nanjing Lu from All Roads Lead to China

So both Myspace and Friendster have their own China versions. Now Kaiser Kuo of Ogilvy Digital China Watch points us to a report on China Business News (第一财经日报) which cites an “industry insider” who says that Facebook plans to release additional language interfaces and intends to enter the China market as early as December this year. The paper also claims that "Facebook has given up its initial plan to set up its own China-based site like MySpace has done with MySpace.cn, but will instead acquire an existing SNS in China."

And in Shanghai...
• John Pasden talks about his (Chinese) wife freaking out over his fever.
• Swiss James of ISpyShanghai recommends the Ganzhi Blindman Massage on the corner of Beijing Lu and Shaanxi Lu.
• Marc van der Chijs (of Tudou fame) shares with us the inconveniences that the cancellation of a recent China Eastern flight brought him and how he was handled.

We had a good laugh when we saw this "patriotic" banner by Chinese blogger Xiucai ("秀才") which reads: "Joyfully welcome the 17th Party Congress, building a harmonious society together. Xiucai is a good comrade. This site has temporarily shut down comments and forum features." [h/t to Rebecca Mackinnon]

Ooooh yeahhh, crab lovers rejoice for it is that time of the year again when Suzhou's Yangcheng Lake (阳澄湖) hairy crabs go on sale! Thank God the algae that bloomed in Lake Tai in Wuxi and Dianchi Lake in Kunming decided to spare the Yangcheng Lake so we can still have crab this year.

The emergence of China as a commercial superpower is, by some way, the most important economic phenomenon of our time. In the last few years, analysts of the global economy have had to rewrite their computer models and recalibrate their slide rules to cope with the People's Republic.

News that China was creating its own domain names that use Chinese characters has created quite a hubbub among techie types recently. Some of the controversy was a misunderstanding, apparently, but some are still worried that China is somehow circumventing "the system." Shanghaiist is not a techie, so we defer to those who know more about this. (But we always found it a little odd that those who don't speak or read English had to write URLs in "English" to surf the web.) Here are some links that will either clear up some confusion regarding this topic, or cause more confusion:

Shanghaiist saw on the China Digital Times a post about the possibility that all Google.com traffic from China being routed to Google.cn, the censored evil twin of the famous search engine. This would mean that you would no longer get crappy Google.com service from within China, because it would no longer exist. CDT picked up this information from this report (in Chinese), which starts off with Google's license issues in China, but if you scroll down, you'll find the paragraph we're talking about. It says that a Google China official said privately to a reporter that the possibility of Google.cn taking over all Google.com directed traffic from within China was a distinct and even likely possibility. We shudder to think, but who's really surprised? Read more about it from Rebecca MacKinnon's website here. On a lighter note, we think Mark Fiore's animation about Western tech companies in China is pretty darn funny.

The Chinese internet that we all curse and tolerate know and love sure has been grabbing international headlines of late. Of course, there's that whole Google thing. And before Google was single-handedly wiping out any chance of democracy in China, Microsoft was public enemy No. 1. In the wake of the worldwide public outcry over its shutdown of popular Chinese blogger Michael Anti's MSN Spaces blog, Microsoft this week announced it has revamped its policies on how it deals with sites that run afoul of local laws:

Several days ago, we told you about Chinese blogger Anti getting muzzled for his recent reports about the Beijing News imbroglio. Now, China blog watcher Rebecca MacKinnon reports that it wasn't the Chinese censors that put the kibosh on Anti's MSN Spaces blog -- it was the friendly folks at Microsoft. MacKinnon's post is well worth a read. Blogger and Microsoft employee Robert Scoble is pissed at his company and has offered Anti an uncensored forum to guest blog on his site. (Anti, by the way, seems to have resuscitated his Blog-City blog, which, like all Blog-City blogs, is blocked in China.) It's not a good PR day in the blogosphere for Microsoft -- even the right-wingers are bashing Bill Gates for cuddling up with the "commies." We at Shanghaiist, proud Apple users, doubt Mr. Bill has ever even heard of Mr. Anti. But perhaps this latest development will help shed some mainstream light on the prickly issue of Western companies aiding and abetting China's internet police.