Asia

The BBC’s website in China has been unblocked, and the broadcaster says that yesterday 16,000 Chinese Internet users looked at its stories, up from the usual 100. While many Western news outlets get blocked by China’s Internet censoring from time to time, the BBC has been on double secret probation for more than almost a decade. Unlike a …

The Olympic torch relay kicked off yesterday, and the lighting ceremony in Greece was interrupted by a short protest by members of the group Reporters Without Borders. More protests are sure to come during the five-month, 85,000 mile journey of the flame. This time.com interactive feature discusses some of the key stops. For a preview of …

In the “A Little History” post below I* quoted a comment by Champson Liu of the People’s Daily, noting in passing that he had used the word ‘mouthpiece’ to describe his newspaper, a term that is derogatory in English. Here’s what he had to say about that term and also about being a journalist in China today :

As to the “mouthpiece” term

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Hu Jia, the activist about whom we have written often, stood trial in Beijing’s Intermediate Court No. 1 last week on subversion charges. His conviction and sentence (a not guilty judgment is about as likely as Steven Spielberg getting an engraved invitation to the Olympics Opening Ceremony) is expected any time now. About a week …

Quick. what’s the one country in the world that just issued a completely unqualified statement of support for the Chinese government’s position on Tibet?

Is it Russia?

No.

North Korea?

Nope.

Myanmar?

Nope.

It’s scrappy little SINGAPORE!

MFA issues statement in support of China on Tibet situation
By Satish Cheney, Channel

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This subject seems to have provoked a good deal of interest (!) among readers. We may come back to the historical discussion later, though the comments pretty well wrap up the issue for me. But as I do like someone who can bite back, I am posting part of the very first comment, an excoriation by one Saul Midmay:

To Simon Elegant and

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Some interesting comments on our blog about Tibet over the last few days….and a great many others that were of the tediously nationalistic, your-coverage-is-biased, Yankee go home, China-good-America-bad type.

Anyway, one of the former came from Champson Liu, an editor at the People’s Daily. Here’s what he had to say (and the …

In this deal—a bid for US based 3COM, which among other things provides network security software to the US military– it was always hard to fathom why Bain Capital, a big time private equity firm, ever thought it could front for China’s Huawei, a Cisco competitor that is one of the least transparent big companies in a country not …

Here are some eyewitness accounts from various points of the uprising, compiled over the last few days, courtesy of RFA. Alas the link is not likely to work for readers here in China.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/politics/2008/03/15/tibet_interviews/

An interesting OP Ed piece in today’s Washington Post re Tibet, on how the lack economic opportunity for Tibetans has fueled the unrest there. Also good, interesting descriptions about what Lhasa was like just five or six years ago versus what it is now. Link is here:

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Here’s a selection of clips from my trip. And yes, there is a theme. We spent three days on the only road to the town of Litang (and on to Tibet and Lhasa) watching these army trucks roll by endlessly. As I say in the story (see previous post) these guys were ready for a full scale fight: full combat kit, supported by field kitchens, …

Just back from a long trip into far west Sichuan province to see what the situation is like in the Tibetan areas of China. Many of my colleagues have been turned away from Tibetan regions of China bordering Tibet. I was lucky enough to get into the town of Litang. My report of what we found is on the Time.com website. I also paste it …