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.
Hidden Harmonies China Blog
As China Re-Awakens, Finding New Harmonies in a Brave New World...
Allen says
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…
melektaus says
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.
pug_ster says
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.