12 Things I Know About China

by Bryan Joiner

China’s got over 1 billion people, but I’d be hard-pressed to write 1,000 words about the country—and I’ve taken a two-part History of Modern China course.

Most of what I’ve learned about China has gone in one ear and out the other—frankly, I’ve had little use for the information—but I think that’s about to change. The “Central Kingdom” is becoming the other major power on the world stage, filling the role abdicated by the Soviet Union nearly 20 years ago.

So, in the right here and right now, what do I, Bryan Joiner, know about China?

• I know, from different sources, about its ancient wars with the Mongols (Bill & Ted), and 20th Century occupation by the Japanese in Manchuria (Haruki Murakami), and the math, which I can’t get my head around.

• I know about Chiang Kai-Shek’s exile, Mao Zedong’s Long March and Great Leap Forward, Deng Xiaopeng’s plan to capitalize the country, Jiang Zemin’s glasses, and Hu Jintao’s Harmonious Society.

• I know about Tiananmen Square, and the iconic photo that belies the atrocities that occurred just off-camera, where thousands of protestors were killed.

• I know about censorship in the Internet age, as Google recently admitted that it had helped the government filter the information available to Chinese citizens, breaking its own corporate motto of “Don’t be evil.”

• I know the most recognizable Chinese man on the planet, 7’6” Yao Ming, is almost two feet taller than the average Chinese man, and that his life is the culmination of an inspired pairing (arranged by the government) of two of the tallest people in China.

• I know that Yao is the centerpiece of the 2008 Beijing Olympics effort, which is a disproportionately important event for China, as it gears up for the arrival, if nothing else, of thousands of free-thinking journalists—even as Reporters Without Borders is calling for a boycott.

• I know that Taiwan and Tibet don’t consider themselves part of China, and while the Taiwan Strait ensures that a Chinese attack to “re-claim” Taiwan would be met by the U.S.’s seventh fleet, land-locked Tibetans, like the Dalai Lama exiled in India, aren’t so lucky.

• I know the Great Wall can be seen by the naked eye from space, except it can’t.

• I know that there are dozens of cities that I’ve never heard of that would dwarf my birthplace of Boston.

• I know that it’s odd that there’s no Chinese food joke in here.

• I know that up until last week, Googling “China” brought up the CIA’s World Factbook web page, which I knew was a mistake—the CIA obviously has nothing to do with China.

• Finally, I know that a roundtrip flight from JFK to Shanghai is under $600 if you go by the end of the month. And I know a good deal when I see one.

Read the rest of The Inquirer's China issue!

(Illustration by Dustin Glick.)

Comments

[Ready]

$600? Okay, let's go! I'll take a flight -- betcha the leaves are changing this time of year. Oh, and seeing Shanghai would be kinda interesting too.

[Cos]

I know about censorship in the Internet age, as Google recently admitted that it had helped the government filter the information available to Chinese citizens, breaking its own corporate motto of “Don’t be evil.”

Ugh! I hate to see this ridiculous claim spread all over the net. It is absolutely false, and Google did nothing evil whatsoever.

In the first place, Google did nothing to block Chinese residents from accessing the normal, uncensored google.com. China (with the help of routers built by other American companies such as Cisco) does that. Chinese access to google.com is sporadic, because if you search for a prohibited term from China, the routers automatically turn off your access for a short time. Chinese users were complaining about this, and turning to search services hosted in China for better access - services that were censored. Just what China wanted.

Google came in and offered a Chinese service hosted in China. The only way they'd be allowed to do this, is if they censored what China told them to. But unlike other services already existing in China, Google's Chinese site *tells* you when your search has been censored.

The net effect:
1. GREATER acess to information for Chinese residents
2. More AWARENESS that China censors one's searches
3. Increased TRANSPARENCY, since thanks to Google China you can now not only tell *which* search terms are censored, but *compare* the same search on google.com to see how how many hits, and which sites, are being censored. Even Chinese users can do this, through proxies. And it lets those of us outside China look inside China and study the censorship.

Google could've just stayed out of it, leaving the status quo of censorship in China marching happily along without them. They thought long and carefully about what they were doing, and figured out a way to get involved and improve the situation. It's an incremental improvement, not an end to censorship, but it's still a good thing. Stop blasting them for it, it's unjust.

(I do not work for Google and have no hidden motives for defending them, it just really really pisses me off to see this claim spread)

[Hal]

Cos, you had me right to the end. A well written, well composed, good arguments and informative retort. You had to go and destroy what ever good image I was getting of you when you said, "it just really pisses me off". What are you?....about 8?

[Bryan]

Cos - good stuff. You got me. You should write for us (unless you already do).

[huijia]

you missed very one important issue happened in China since July 1999. The king of horror came down to China, and a lot of indecent Chinese people who practiced Falun Gong were tortured to death by "big glasses" and Chinese communist party.