• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Hidden Harmonies China Blog

Hidden Harmonies China Blog

As China Re-Awakens, Finding New Harmonies in a Brave New World...

  • About Us
  • China Charities
  • FAQ
    • Terms of Service
  • Recommended Readings

A Chinese reporter’s 5-minute speech on free thinking, activism, and improving society

February 2, 2013 by YinYang 3 Comments

The following 5-minute speech is by 柴静, a news anchor in China. It’s in Chinese, but I enjoyed what she had to say. She recounts the people she’s met over the years and their unique stories of individuals fighting for rights, upholding law, and the need for free thinking. This is an example of a narrative for wanting to truly improve Chinese society. How different is 柴静 from the handful of ‘dissidents’ the Western press often champions for? They speak the same ideas, don’t they? Well, they indeed do. The striking difference though, which makes 柴静 an example of mainstream force of change in China, is that she does not whore to topple her own government and turn her society upside down.

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: 柴静

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Allen says

    February 3, 2013 at 2:32 am

    Indeed … you can see that we are having a real discourse here. Here we have some deep thoughts, shared in a room without glitz. There are many other conversations like these throughout China. Many ways people are empowering the government and the government empowering the people. The government and people are one body. A government without a people’s support cannot stand, and a people without government also cannot stand. Both have duties to each other (yes people have a duty to respect government, to contribute to making government strong, to make government work; and government has a duty to serve the people). That’s how things are supposed to work.

    Sure one can point to degenerative cases where government no longer serve the people and needs to be replaced. That would be time for a revolution, a process that should never be taken lightly. But one can also point equally to degenerative cases where a people is no longer vibrant, where people hijacks the government to serve private selfish interests – as is the case of democracy in much of the Western world today.

    I’d prefer to focus on the working model, understanding that the degenerative cases are often used to scare people for others’ political gain…

  2. melektaus says

    February 3, 2013 at 9:48 pm

    There are many issues with those in the west who criticize China. The main one is that they almost always critize the wrong elements. For example in focusing on manufacturing the image of China as a threat to world peace and in criticizing the central CCP government when the opposite is the truth. I.e., that China is a leader in promoting world peace and one of most peaceful major military powers on earth and one of the most successful in diplomacy. China’s central government is also one of the most sincere, dedicated and competent in the world. China has many problems but these are due to the fact that it is a society in transition and that it has an incredibly poor and ignorant population. America’s problems during the period they were industrializing mirrors those of China’s and so do India’s today but their problems were and are far worse in degree.

  3. pug_ster says

    February 5, 2013 at 8:23 am

    Funny thing is that as soon as the story came out, there is not follow up afterwards. I guess that if NY times start giving details of how this ‘hack’ happened, they’ve got nothing traced back to China.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • The TikTok Ban That Failed. This Ban Is Not Really About ‘National Security’ Rather It Is About Greed And Control.
  • 大山的女兒–Daughter of the Mountain
  • No, the Chinese does not express glee over Shinzo Abe’s assassination and how western propaganda got it wrong about what Chinese thinks of Abe
  • The Overt Politicization of the Origins of Covid-19
  • The U.S. Loves Wars…

Recent Comments

  • Hengxin on 大山的女兒–Daughter of the Mountain
  • Hompuso on Short Note on Media Disinformation: No, No, No… CIA is not Impersonating Others in Hacking Others … There is just not Proof!
  • Abraham on The Overt Politicization of the Origins of Covid-19
  • purislot on (Letter) Web search for Tiananmen not censored, but do people care?
  • hanhan on 且谈1989年的天安门事件

Tag Cloud

america Beijing censorship China china-u.s. relations coronavirus corruption culture dalai lama defamation againt Chinese democracy earthquake economy education Environment featured freedom freedom of speech Google government history hong kong human rights humor india internet japan media media bias nationalism olympics politics propaganda racism reform riot rule of law sino-u.s. relations sixfour South China Seas taiwan tiananmen tibet U.S. China Relations xinjiang

Archives

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Blogroll

  • China Dialogue
  • China in Africa: The Real Story by Deborah Brautigam
  • Chinese Portal
  • ESWN (東南西北)
  • Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
  • Fool's Mountain (sibling blog)
  • iLook China
  • Moon of Shanghai
  • Outcast Journalism
  • Professor Ann Lee
  • Sino Platonic
  • The Anti-Empire Report

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in