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Friday, February 24, 2006
News of the Day from Communist China
For those interested, the latest installment is up.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on February 24, 2006 in International Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
DJ,
(1) I neglected to mention before that I have been checking out your site and think it is a valuable contribution to informing people about important world issues. So thatnks for doing it.
(2) I am still curious as to your answer to my question in the thread below. Here is what I posted there [NB: I've changed the last sentence from that post to remove to hostile tone]:
China-e-Lobby: "No, I don't support a firewall. Yes, I do think letting the channels in is different, but, and perahps I could have been more precise, not because of their programming and such. My problem is, it's an arm of the Communist regime."
You just contradicted yourself. If your problem is that "it's an arm of the Communist regime", then your problem should be either *both* with TV channels that are arms of the Communist regime *and* with websites that are arms of the Communist regime or with *neither*. But Jay linked to a news site that *is* an arm of a Communist regime - it is a DPRK government run site. There also are many Chinese government run websites, too (like this: http://www.china.org.cn/english/). So if your problem *really* is with arms of the Communist regime, then you should support a firewall against these sites. That contradicts your claim to not support a firewall.
So which is it? Should we block both or neither? Or is there another distinction between the two you are making?
Posted by: Mark Logan | 2006-02-24 1:09:32 PM
Mark,
First off, thank you for your kind words. Secondly, while I appreciate your move to "remove the hostile tone" from your repeated comment, I don't remember the original version being altogether hostile. The reasons I haven't responded had to do with time (I had none).
Anyhow, I do consider a difference between television (which is regulated up there - and down here to a lesser extent) and the internet, which for now is still largely unregulated in the democratic world. Of course, as I almost never watch television for news anymore, I may be less concerned about that than I should, but my greater worry is allowing a regime that is currently aiding our terrorist enemies (see my most recent post - 12:56 PST on 2/26) and committing massive espionage in your country and mine to profit from the television marketplace.
Even al-Jazeera (owned, if memory serves, by Qatar) doesn't have this problem, IMHO.
My point is, I don't see it as a speech issue. The fact that the Communists can use the web, which anyone can access from home or their local library, means the "information" is available to all. Giving the Communist the chance to get advertising revenue, more "media access" to Canada, and better oppprtunities to terrorize the Chinese-Canadian population are the issues on my mind as I look at this.
Posted by: China e-Lobby | 2006-02-26 2:09:17 AM
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