New Reply

Post a Reply

Thread: USA Today news article "Two Faces of China"

Title: (100 characters at most)

Content: ( 3,000 characters at most, please )

You can add emoticons below to your post by clicking them.

[quote=LEONARDO,267193]Still censored

As a journalist, the most troubling contradiction was the absence of a free press. Government censorship is evident in the watered-down coverage in Chinese newspapers and TV and radio news shows. The result is a rush to the Internet by the Chinese seeking "news" created anywhere but under government influence. Even there, the contradictions are in evidence. The Chinese can argue about anything online so long, as one blogger explained to me, as it does not involve the banned spiritual group Falun Gong or the three T's: Taiwan, Tiananmen Square and Tibet. Even so, the government must realize that trying to orchestrate, monitor, much less control the 1.3 billion voices will ultimately prove to be a futile exercise.

To this curious visitor, it is clear that the Chinese people aspire to return their country to a place it occupied centuries ago — as a great civilization and world leader in economics, the arts and military might.

Many Chinese people told me that America's negative views of their authoritarian government, media control and lax product safety is proof that the USA is jealous of China. The Americans, they say, are simply trying to impose their values while undermining this emerging rival.

And perhaps that's what the modern Cold War will be about. Not capitalism vs. communism, but a conflict within China between rapid economic growth and a closed society constrained by an outdated Communist structure.

Juan Williams is a political analyst for NPR and Fox News.
[/quote]

characters left

Name:

Get a new code