This forum post on Anti-CNN asks the question of netizens: “Without the Great Firewall, would China be able to occupy the battlefield of the Western public discourse?” Here is a sampling of some of the responses by Chinese netizens:
NO IT CANNOT.
1) China lacks language skills. You should know most people only study foreign languages to pass tests.
2) [Chinese] lack the necessary knowledge, they can only understand the sciences [not the humanities].
3) They lack the historical common knowledge, language background, and cultural background. They’re only willing to study the sciences
It can’t, the power to take the initiative is in the hands of others.
I feel it can’t. I once read a media studies professor’s analysis of Western media [idea] dissemination strategies; I feel that we’re really behind in this aspect. As far as regular netizens are concerned, our national education doesn’t teach these kind of techniques, so [common people] probably couldn’t out debate Westerners. Most importantly, at the present the platforms for international exchange were all created by Westerners.
[In response to the above comment] It’s not a matter of being out-debated, it’s that Chinese are taught to love the nation and the Party from when they’re young; Westerners learn freedom, equality, and universal love. With totally different liquids used in the brainwashing, could there be a common language?
Definitely not, even if we had the truth, we would be drowned by all sorts of their strategic moves.
I feel it can, justice eventually defeating evil is a historical trend!
If you judge it, we haven’t even started debating it yet and we’ve already lost! So what is there to debate about? My answer is that it can’t.
It can’t. Many Chinese have already “climbed the wall”, but the information outside it is fundamentally biased towards the West, so they [the Chinese outside the GFW] naturally believe that what the West says is correct and objective. If we were to get rid of the wall, these people would join the West in a battle for public opinion.
Completely impossible. Only when our actual physical power outpaces that of the West could our values win superiority. Value systems are propped up by “hard power”, not by the gift of gab.
It can.
Definitely not. They don’t communicate in Chinese, and if we communicate with them in English we’ll definitely be no match!
At the moment, no…but we must continue and improve!
Although I haven’t made a formal count and there’s no official poll, from scanning the first few pages of comments it seems that most people agree China could not win the battle for public opinion with the West, at least not at the moment.
凯文 “would China be able to occupy the battlefield of the Western public discourse?”I find this completely scary that the extremists in both the United States and China get to control the dialog that our two nations should be enemies and do battle. There are a lot of people in both China and the United States that see each others as brothers and sisters. United we can make this century the most peaceful in history, divided we will only destroy everything we worked to accomplished. As I told my Chinese in-laws, America and China are mirror images of each other. We both have the same desires and we move in the same direction of progress, but we also have cultures and problems that are opposite of each other. America has a lot of wealth but relies too much on debt, China is growing very quickly but this growth is on the backs of migrant workers and the poor. China has a lack of human rights, but America has the lack of filial piety. America has much to learn from China as China has to learn from America, and I hope more people on both sides of the Pacific Ocean are able to see the similarities and the things we can learn from each other rather than the excuses we can use to destroy the two greatest nations that have ever existed.
Sly Reference I wonder what do they consider the “battlefield of Western public discourse”? Blogs? Comment sections on articles? No one group dominates Western public discourse, and haven’t for a long time. There are some big names that a lot of people listen to, like salon.com, Rush Limbaugh and the Daily Show, but few people listen to all the writers out there. Heck, we don’t even have time to read/listen to all the people we *want* to read/listen to. Chinese writers jumping into the fray would just muddy the waters more, and probably increase the signal to noise ratio. It’s a silly question, because the discourse space is not a battlefield.
Lewis In addition to the two excellent points above, I’m also wary of thinking of GFW policy in terms of how it looks to the outside world. China should manage/dismantle the GFW for its own long-term development, even culturally, and not to score points with the West. Dismantling the GFW would help them engage the West in a more equal relationship because it would allow Chinese people to openly discuss all aspects of their lives and history, which I think would allow Chinese culture to flourish. Chinese culture is, of course, already ancient, nuanced, and profound, but when people across a country can fearlessly express themselves and challenge each other’s ideas, creativity explodes and people’s views of the world become much more sophisticated.
Uln The guys at Anti-CNN are simple binary minds. They see the World as good vs evil, China vs West, black vs white… what is “to occupy the battlefield of Western discourse”? The question itself speaks lots of the mentality of the author. Debate is not about conquering, it is about participating and having access to different views and keeping your mind open. Opening the GFW would very positive to attain just that. Having an open government that lets individuals speak their minds and does not censor the media would help even more.
Old Tales Retold Debating is definitely a skill and it is possible to have good ideas but lack the means of expressing them in an convincing way. The question is: what do the Anti-CNN commentators want to argue? If the internet is a battlefield, what are they battling for? What vision do they have for the world? What is everyone missing?Are the fenqing just fighting to preserve their country’s image? That’s not an idea or value or plan or anything.Of course, they might reply that power is at the heart of everything and because they were born in X nation-state, their highest goal in life should be to increase the power of X and, as netizens, the way they can do that is through strengthening X’s “soft power” by saying nice stuff about X and denying bad stuff about it. But if they don’t have any ideas in there, theories about what is fair and unfair in the world, how to help people live better lives, etc, then even the soft power thing won’t go far.It reminds me a bit of Karen Hughes, that ambassador Bush sent around the Muslim world to improve America’s image. She came back saying everyone thought the worst things about the U.S.: that we torture people, invade countries without reason and imprison people for long periods without trial. “Anti-Americanism,” she called it.Well, yes, it was anti-Americanism but it was also all entirely accurate. Hughes had no ideas she wanted to share with the world. She just wanted to disabuse people of their “misunderstandings.” But there were no misunderstandings.
shuaige There is no battlefield, it’s all made up to stir sentiment.Most Chinese believe in the same values as the “West” regardless or whether or not the government implements it. What it really comes down to is that China doesn’t want to be TOLD what to do. If democracy, freedom of speech, uncensored internet etc were a Chinese, homegrown movement, there would be no “patriotic backlash” against them.
MAC I’m not an expert, but I haven’t seen any blogs specifically dedicated to that. When I see translated content, it’s usually in the form of forum postings, and a lot of the longer writings supposedly from foreign sources are outright fakes, or at best unattributed (as is the general habit on Chinese forums) and impossible to verify but highly questionable. I’ve seen some translations of short comments made on bulletin, boards, but they’re usually from English-language boards within China, and the translators often seem to overlook that some of their purportedly “foreign” viewpoints seem, from their English and attitudes, to also come from Chinese.OTR said what I think much more eloquently and diplomatically, as usual- China, at present, isn’t offering a lot of values or ideas that appeal to many people except other groups that want “the west” off their backs. Obviously, there’s been more people lately saying “look at China’s economy, too bad our government can’t just make things happen like they do,” but I doubt that even those people would particularly welcome the trade-offs of going that way.
xyz There is 译言, a site dedicated to translating stuff from English to Chinese. They seem to be mostly translating newspaper articles. http://www.yeeyan.org/?from_com
xyz Yiyan was just unblocked a few days ago.http://www.infzm.com/content/40739
译言 离开的39天
作者: 南方人物周刊记者 杨潇 发自北京 2010-01-25 18:25:011月8日，译言更换域名重新开放，原来的蓝色风格也变成了红色主题。一篇“2010译言感恩”的文章这样写道：“译言的存在，是因为有太多的人像我们一样，想要开阔视野，想要了解差距，想要获得前沿新知。只要这样的努力依然存在，译言就会存在……”在网站重开后，陈昊芝几乎马不停蹄地接受了数家媒体的采访，他希望媒体能成为沟通上下、消除误会的桥梁。他说，译言的关停，只是大环境中的一个小案例，“Google尚且如此，我不认为自己有多委屈。”他和他的团队，更愿意将这次事件看作一次涅槃，“我想对我们反而有两个好处，以前一些用户倾向于翻译时政内容，但通过这次他们知道这些东西对译言没好处，他们反而理解了；我们在和《卫报》的合作中多少有些迷失，时政内容可以吸引眼球，但比较难换取长期稳定的用户，所以我们会更加注重给用户一个内容导向。”This article about douban’s censorshop of a book by 龙应台 has making the rounds lately. Another victory by the Ministry of Truth. The blog post itself is interesting in that it shows how young people are taking to these websites. The author, I believe, is a undergrad journalism student at PKU. http://www.fangkc.cn/news/internet/dictator-douban/
独裁者豆瓣
25Jan
本文隶属类别：互联网行业观察 本文发表时间：Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:18:57 +0800 版权 Comments: 132其实，在一向谨小慎微的豆瓣上，是不可能出现这本所谓“禁书”的条目的。豆瓣的图书条目以ISBN为识别依据，《大江大海一九四九》这本书的 ISBN早已被设定为不可添加了。但道高一尺魔高一丈，网友们总能想到办法对抗。方法之一，就是盗用另一本书的ISBN号，然后填上“大江大海”的书名。当然，管理员也不是吃素的，发现一本打击一本，而网友又会去寻找其他的书作为篡改的目标，这样的“猫鼠游戏”无时不刻不在上演。“老鼠”太多，而“猫”精力毕竟有限，所以总有些漏网之鱼。前几天，我看到不少友邻的广播中都出现了“读过《大江大海》”。但1月22日上午，我发现大家的广播都变成了“读过《新高考题典–数学》”。看来是被管理员发现了。我点进条目（http://www.douban.com/subject/1643617/）一看，发现虽然名字被改回来了，但相关的评分、豆列仍在，所以你会看到滑稽的景象：一本《新高考题典》被打了9.4的超高分，被打上“苦难”这样的标签，还被收入“禁书目录”等豆列……
Kaiser @ULN – Spot on. The problematic mentality is plain to see in the wording of the question. It shouldn’t be a battlefield. The problem is of course that there are the same binary minds on both sides — among Chinese and among Anglophone westerners, and if you look at the comments sections of blogs and online MSM stories, or YouTube comments or what have you, it sure does look like a battle.The only thing that unfettered Chinese access to the rest of the world’s Internet might do is reduce to some extent the maddeningly patronizing attitude one so often finds in online debates between Chinese and Anglophone westerners that “You guys live in an information-controlled environment, and you’re therefore ignorant and completely brainwashed.”
pug_ster The person at anti-cnn is correct. The problem is that most westerners believe that they are superior culturally, mentally, politically, socially, and financially compared to the Chinese. You hear this kind of attitude projected from Western Politicians like HRC and these ‘Western ‘experts’ like Rebecca MacKinnon and James Fallows and soimehow their attitude is that they need to ‘export’ their opinions and values onto the Chinese people. The problem is that many Chinese have their own set of values which the West thinks that it is backwarded. I doubt that you will see an agreement between the 2 with or without the GFW.
Old Tales Retold @ Pug_Ster,Yes, there are lots of arrogant people out there. I don’t know that MacKinnon and Fallows are at the top of that list, though. They have opinions, but they don’t seem particularly pushy about them—unless just having well-worked-out opinions about China is in and of itself pushy.Regardless, when you say that “many Chinese have their own set of values,” which Chinese people do you mean? What is their class background, specifically, i.e. what interests do they bring to their values? And what exactly are those values? What is the argument they are presenting to the world? Why should the world listen?I tend to disagree with Wahaha, but at least he (or she) goes out on a limb and argues passionately—and often persuasively—for the merits of a particular growth strategy for developing countries generally and China in particular, namely mild authoritarianism coupled with openness to foreign investment.I don’t typically hear anything that coherent from Chinese nationalists, just anger at various criticisms of their country and contempt for other cultures… which seems awfully similar to right-wingers in other countries, from the United States to Serbia to Turkey to Switzerland.
pug_ster Since when a common Westerner read Chinese newspaper or understand Chinese culture. Most Westerners don’t care about them, and expect Chinese to adopt Western ideas and culture. Give me a break.
pug_ster OTR,Regardless, when you say that “many Chinese have their own set of values,” which Chinese people do you mean? What is their class background, specifically, i.e. what interests do they bring to their values? And what exactly are those values? What is the argument they are presenting to the world? Why should the world listen?Perhaps that’s the difference of what you think of ‘universal values’ is actually Western Values, and many other people who have different set of values than you.
狗仔卡
发表于 2010-1-30 21:58
“would China be able to occupy the battlefield of the Western public discourse?”I find this completely scary that the extremists in both the United States and China get to control the dialog that our two nations should be enemies and do battle. There are a lot of people in both China and the United States that see each others as brothers and sisters. United we can make this century the most peaceful in history, divided we will only destroy everything we worked to accomplished. As I told my Chinese in-laws, America and China are mirror images of each other. We both have the same desires and we move in the same direction of progress, but we also have cultures and problems that are opposite of each other. America has a lot of wealth but relies too much on debt, China is growing very quickly but this growth is on the backs of migrant workers and the poor. China has a lack of human rights, but America has the lack of filial piety. America has much to learn from China as China has to learn from America, and I hope more people on both sides of the Pacific Ocean are able to see the similarities and the things we can learn from each other rather than the excuses we can use to destroy the two greatest nations that have ever existed.
I wonder what do they consider the “battlefield of Western public discourse”? Blogs? Comment sections on articles? No one group dominates Western public discourse, and haven’t for a long time. There are some big names that a lot of people listen to, like salon.com, Rush Limbaugh and the Daily Show, but few people listen to all the writers out there. Heck, we don’t even have time to read/listen to all the people we *want* to read/listen to. Chinese writers jumping into the fray would just muddy the waters more, and probably increase the signal to noise ratio. It’s a silly question, because the discourse space is not a battlefield.
In addition to the two excellent points above, I’m also wary of thinking of GFW policy in terms of how it looks to the outside world. China should manage/dismantle the GFW for its own long-term development, even culturally, and not to score points with the West. Dismantling the GFW would help them engage the West in a more equal relationship because it would allow Chinese people to openly discuss all aspects of their lives and history, which I think would allow Chinese culture to flourish. Chinese culture is, of course, already ancient, nuanced, and profound, but when people across a country can fearlessly express themselves and challenge each other’s ideas, creativity explodes and people’s views of the world become much more sophisticated.
The guys at Anti-CNN are simple binary minds. They see the World as good vs evil, China vs West, black vs white… what is “to occupy the battlefield of Western discourse”? The question itself speaks lots of the mentality of the author. Debate is not about conquering, it is about participating and having access to different views and keeping your mind open. Opening the GFW would very positive to attain just that. Having an open government that lets individuals speak their minds and does not censor the media would help even more.
Debating is definitely a skill and it is possible to have good ideas but lack the means of expressing them in an convincing way. The question is: what do the Anti-CNN commentators want to argue? If the internet is a battlefield, what are they battling for? What vision do they have for the world? What is everyone missing?Are the fenqing just fighting to preserve their country’s image? That’s not an idea or value or plan or anything.Of course, they might reply that power is at the heart of everything and because they were born in X nation-state, their highest goal in life should be to increase the power of X and, as netizens, the way they can do that is through strengthening X’s “soft power” by saying nice stuff about X and denying bad stuff about it. But if they don’t have any ideas in there, theories about what is fair and unfair in the world, how to help people live better lives, etc, then even the soft power thing won’t go far.It reminds me a bit of Karen Hughes, that ambassador Bush sent around the Muslim world to improve America’s image. She came back saying everyone thought the worst things about the U.S.: that we torture people, invade countries without reason and imprison people for long periods without trial. “Anti-Americanism,” she called it.Well, yes, it was anti-Americanism but it was also all entirely accurate. Hughes had no ideas she wanted to share with the world. She just wanted to disabuse people of their “misunderstandings.” But there were no misunderstandings.
There is no battlefield, it’s all made up to stir sentiment.Most Chinese believe in the same values as the “West” regardless or whether or not the government implements it. What it really comes down to is that China doesn’t want to be TOLD what to do. If democracy, freedom of speech, uncensored internet etc were a Chinese, homegrown movement, there would be no “patriotic backlash” against them.
I’m not an expert, but I haven’t seen any blogs specifically dedicated to that. When I see translated content, it’s usually in the form of forum postings, and a lot of the longer writings supposedly from foreign sources are outright fakes, or at best unattributed (as is the general habit on Chinese forums) and impossible to verify but highly questionable. I’ve seen some translations of short comments made on bulletin, boards, but they’re usually from English-language boards within China, and the translators often seem to overlook that some of their purportedly “foreign” viewpoints seem, from their English and attitudes, to also come from Chinese.OTR said what I think much more eloquently and diplomatically, as usual- China, at present, isn’t offering a lot of values or ideas that appeal to many people except other groups that want “the west” off their backs. Obviously, there’s been more people lately saying “look at China’s economy, too bad our government can’t just make things happen like they do,” but I doubt that even those people would particularly welcome the trade-offs of going that way.
There is 译言, a site dedicated to translating stuff from English to Chinese. They seem to be mostly translating newspaper articles.
yeah there’s yiyan that does news stuff. They just got blocked in China though, or so I have read.
@ULN – Spot on. The problematic mentality is plain to see in the wording of the question. It shouldn’t be a battlefield. The problem is of course that there are the same binary minds on both sides — among Chinese and among Anglophone westerners, and if you look at the comments sections of blogs and online MSM stories, or YouTube comments or what have you, it sure does look like a battle.The only thing that unfettered Chinese access to the rest of the world’s Internet might do is reduce to some extent the maddeningly patronizing attitude one so often finds in online debates between Chinese and Anglophone westerners that “You guys live in an information-controlled environment, and you’re therefore ignorant and completely brainwashed.”
The person at anti-cnn is correct. The problem is that most westerners believe that they are superior culturally, mentally, politically, socially, and financially compared to the Chinese. You hear this kind of attitude projected from Western Politicians like HRC and these ‘Western ‘experts’ like Rebecca MacKinnon and James Fallows and soimehow their attitude is that they need to ‘export’ their opinions and values onto the Chinese people. The problem is that many Chinese have their own set of values which the West thinks that it is backwarded. I doubt that you will see an agreement between the 2 with or without the GFW.
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2010-2-1 09:09