“Across the Great Wall, we can reach every corner of the world,” announced the first e-mail sent from China in September 1987. By January 1996, construction was completed on China’s backbone broadband network CHINANET, which began to provide network service throughout the country.1 The number of Chinese internet users has continued to grow exponentially each year. At the end of 2008 the number was almost 300 million, up from 59.10 million at the end of 2002.2 Bloggers have been active since August 5, 2002. On that day, Isaac Mao made China’s first blog post, which simply stated, “From today, I’m stepping into the blogosphere.”3 Chinese authorities have continually tried to erect a “Great Firewall” to block “subversive” postings, and their efforts have intensified in preparation for the 60th Anniversary celebrations. However, bloggers have continued to raise their voices. Below is a selection of their comments on the 60th Anniversary.
The Party knows no bounds in testing the people. The Internet has been "greened." Education is not taken seriously. Read the newspaper, and you’ll be deceived. Drink milk, there's poison. Lose your job, you deserve it. Buses are being blown-up. Land is being taken. Homes are being demolished. Children are being sold. Miners are being buried.
Young girls are being raped. The rest are subjected to security services, city management, joint defense and public security forces; they’re “harmonized” or told they have mental disorders. They say it’s anti-China to catch the rapist; it’s anti-China to ask about the quality of building construction when your child is crushed to death; it’s anti-China to expose that there’s poison in our food; it is also anti-China to petition about the beatings, killings and bullying of common people; just raising questions about the sale of children, or of HIV-infected blood, the illegal coal kilns, the fake news, the judiciary breaking the law, embezzlement and corruption, unconstitutional violation of rights, or the “green-damming” of the Internet, is anti-China.
If you aren’t anti-China, are you even human?
If you do something in the public interest, you’re gathering crowds to cause trouble and create an incident; if you do something for the nation, you are fomenting political unrest; if you clearly demonstrate that there’s been a mistake, then you have ulterior motives; if there are too many people who are angry, they have failed to see the truth and have been incited by someone; if there is international condemnation, then it is external anti-China forces. We haven’t seen a ballot in 60 years; there is no universal education, no medical insurance, no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no freedom of information, no freedom of movement, no judicial independence, no oversight by public opinion, no independent trade unions, no national army, no constitutional protection; all that’s left is the “grass-mud horse.”4
I‘m not up for rejoicing, the money spent on National Day flowers could be better spent on the common people for their work well done. The financial tsunami has already brought us, the common people, unspeakable hardships. I am not up for rejoicing.
Let’s shout! Shout, shout the slogans! But will it make life better?!
I think that amnesty should not be restricted to “light offenders and those who have committed unpremeditated crimes.” It should also be extended to “prisoners of conscience,” who receive heavy sentences because of their “improper ways of defending rights” or “inappropriate expression of political opinion.” If all war criminals can be pardoned, why can't they?
You could say that in the sixty years since the Communist Party has ascended to the throne, there has not been a single day without torment. . . In the past sixty years, which of the committed errors and crimes has been completely acknowledged and apologized for? For which of them have all the facts been made completely clear and the people given consolation and [official] explanation? Not only does the government not admit to the errors and crimes committed during the past sixty years by earnestly investigating the facts, it moreover does not allow the people to investigate them, the scholars to research them, nor the people to appeal for redress of the wrongs. . . . The CPC should take the initiative to publicly apologize to the people for the errors and crimes it has committed during the past sixty years, for the sixty years of its blind recklessness and arbitrary torment; it should make public the truth about the torment of these past sixty years and seek reconciliation between the governmentand the people. Only if it does so will it truly be “serving the people.”
Emphasis added.
Notes
1. China Internet Network Information Center, “The Internet Timeline of China 1987-1996,” June 26, 2004, http://www.cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2003/12/12/2000.htm; China Internet Network Information Center [中国互联网络信息中心], “1987 nian – 1993 nian hulianwang dashiji” [1987年～1993年 互联网大事记], May 26, 2009, http://research.cnnic.cn/html/2009-05-26/1243315654d525.html; China Internet Network Information Center [中国互联网络信息中心], “1994 nian – 1996 nian hulianwang dashiji” [1994年～1996年互联网大事记], May 26, 2009, http://research.cnnic.cn/html/2009-05-26/1243316017d526.html. ^
2. The CNNIC 11th “Statistical report on the Development of the Internet in China” reported that that by December 31, 2002, there were 59.10 million Chinese Internet users and 371,000 Chinese www websites. China Internet Network Information Center, “The Internet Timeline of China 2004-2006,” http://www.cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2005/07/19/3045.htm. As of December 31, 2008, the number of Chinese internet users reached 298 million and the number of Chinese websites reached 2.878 million. China Internet Network Information Center, “The Internet Timeline of China (2008),” May 18, 2009, http://www.cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2009/05/18/5600.htm. ^
3. Isaac Mao, “China’s first blogger Isaac Mao: it was just like a fairy story,” The Guardian, August 5, 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/05/blogging.digitalmedia. ^
4. The characters for “grass-mud horse” (or “cob horse”), 草泥马, which are pronounced “cao ni ma” in Chinese, are widely used as a substitute for its homonym “f**k your mother.” ^
