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Two minutes hate for Google begins

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Paul Mason | 13:27 UK time, Friday, 26 March 2010

It was a bright cold day in March, and the clocks were striking 13. Winston Zhang, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the air pollution, flashed his digital security pass to gain access to the newsroom, located his cubicle and logged on.

It was the day after Google had pulled out of China - so he was expecting an instruction from the Propaganda Department and sure enough, there it was, flashing in the red-gold colours of the flag from his computer screen - "This is a high impact incident!"

The guidelines were clear:

"1. It is not permitted to hold discussions or investigations on the Google topic
2. Interactive sections do not recommend this topic, do not place this topic and related comments at the top
3. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which attack the Party, State, government agencies, internet policies with the excuse of this event
4. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which support Google, dedicate flowers to Google, ask Google to stay, cheer for Google and others have a different tune from government policy
5. On topics related to Google, carefully manage the information in exchanges, comments and other interactive sessions
6. Chief managers in different regions please assign specific manpower to monitor Google-related information; if there is information about mass incidents, please report it in a timely manner."

... but this is not Orwell. The above bullet points are real, as translated by China Digital Times from what they allege is a leaked memo.

I can't verify its authenticity independently but there are numerous parallel reports and briefings coming out which indicate the Chinese official media is being told to a) censor all independent discussion of the Google issue and b) begin blackening the character of the US web giant.

South China Morning Post reports that Sina.com has received verbal instructions to: "toe the line and stick to [the] official version to prevent our media becoming mouthpieces for [Google] and tools attacking our national polices".

Outside the Google HQ in Beijing on Friday I am told the 40-odd journalists who had initially gathered have dwindled to just one, and those journalists speaking to the company off the record are saying they won't be allowed to print anything.

Meanwhile it appears that the company has become an unperson on China's equivalent to Facebook, Renren. Its profile, with 25,000 "friends", got shut down on Wednesday for "inappropriate behaviour".

Now this may shock you, but such methods are not reserved for dealing with Google. To give you a taste of what Chinese Communist Party (CCP) does not like, here's another recent leak of Propaganda Dept instructions to journalists.

"Propaganda direction: Please every platform block the following information. 《Examining China》(《透视中国》); exposing five industry fields controlled by China's princelings; Wen Jiabao's solo 'democracy' performance; at the crucial moment of the core power transition, political inner-circle releasing subtle messages; Beijing high officials' 'outrageous behaviors' during the 'two sessions' causing many guesses. Please execute."

In the West of course we do things differently. The Bush administration was caught tens of thousands of dollars to promote its policies. And when you get a verbal ear bashing, or a 3am profane text message from a UK government spin-doctor here it's only your career they're threatening, not your liberty.

(In this context, I have to say to the outraged Hong Kong reporter who posted - dream on if you think officials significantly more helpful here!)

All over the world people in power try to heavy journalists and stop them reporting the truth. In China, it's usually over incidents or the actions of forlorn dissidents who, like Gao Zhisheng, just .

But it's going to be hard for China to make Google disappear. For one thing the corporation seems to be toughening its resistance - massively aware of the brand enhancement effect it's having in the West versus its arch rival Microsoft, whose boss, Bill Gates insists:

"The Chinese efforts to censor the Internet have been very limited".

The danger for Google is it finds itself out on a very long limb. The US State Department is not going to burn its boats with China over Google and, as Rio Tinto found out, things can get nasty. Who will blink first?

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Ah well, evil and hate always have been uncommon bedfellows.

    Funny old world.

  • Comment number 2.

    I have posted on this very blog before that this blog is indeed one of the few 成人快手 blogs that does not censor criticism of the author, the programme he works on nor the 成人快手 in general.

    The control mentality on several 成人快手 blogs and websites is such that even tongue-in-cheek humour or simple good old-fashioned British sarcasm is considered too risque for some - take note Fivelive!

    Hence I think any criticism of Google and China from many within the 成人快手, this blog's author being one exception, is simply ironic.

    The importance of free speech, of viewers and listeners being able to have their voice heard on the 成人快手, and to criticise, is sadly and dangerously amiss from the 成人快手's apparent Internet policy. Don't look to China for WWW censorship - look to the 成人快手!

  • Comment number 3.

    if a nation results from a common feeling from among a group of people the more chinese who go abroad and experience 'freedom' then that feeling itself will in the end change the state. A middle class feeling is not a peasant workers communists against imperialist oppressors feeling? there is no need for communism in suburbia.

    i remember, in the days of communism, taking some exchange students from eastern europe around the local supermarket with the shelves stacked with fresh fruits and goods. Some burst into tears at the bounty before them. Then i knew that one day communism will be rejected.

  • Comment number 4.

    Just by writing this comment is good evidence to believe that the internet is a tool for freedom & that as much as one party dictatorships & capitalist governments try to control the people, one day the people will be free.

    But political freedom cannot happen without economic freedom.
    Which means the people need to take collective control of the means of production & establish direct democracy.
    Not a vanguard party taking power in a coup & paternalistically dictating what is best for everyone.

    Winstons of the world unite!

  • Comment number 5.

    Storm in a chinese tea cup.

    china is just doing what it has to do to maintain stability in the most populous country which has no established democratic tradition.

    Democracy is avolatile thing to introduce and required great sacrifice and more often than not a period of chaos before it gets establised.

    I dont think it is in chinas interests or the worlds interest for them to enter into such aprocess at this time. it is just way too dangerous. i dont think they are irresponsible at all. They are playing the geopolitical game far better than anyone else at the moment, i think they also understand that democracy in china would be something to be achieved gradually over a couple of generations.

    They know what they are doing and have a vision.

    Do we?

    The assumption seems to be that western style democracy is the be all and end all, what has been forgotton is that having a vision is essential. There is no such thing as a perfect system, western democracy and its global economic model is guilty of complacency of vision.

    'where there is no vision the people perish' (Old testament).

    I am not religious but merely seek to point out that a deeper wisdom has been around for some time and we do not have a monopoly on it.


    as a slight aside another visionless organisation (the catholic church) should not be allowed to bury the latest scandal.

    It has become somewhat of a grotesque characature of itself as written on the countenance of the pontiff himself and those now dragged out 'damian mc bride style' to prop him up.

  • Comment number 6.

    support your 成人快手 they are voice of freedom and not for the first time if Tory central office get in it will be wall to wall Fox news, sackings galore at the beeb, attacks on the license fee, the placing of Willie's ie BA management at the top desk...we have all been warned..

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