Alumni Editor's Note: This week was the 20th anniversary of what is known in America as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. At the AA E-Zine, we had divided conflicts. We want to speak the truth but we do not want our alumni and students home in China for the summer to lose access to us.  But in the end, it is our Chinese students who silently made the decision for us. China blocked our access to them anyway. The truth won when we realized that our fear made us as complicit with the Chinese government as what this Op Ed discusses, so we are reproducing it. Written last year, it is about how American companies, and thus all Americans, are also to blame in what China does. One Tiananmen leader, now in exile, said that China does not have an internet. It has an intranet through which the government blocks what it does not want its people to see. For this anniversary, the Chinese government went further. It did not selectively block information about Tiananmen but rather blocked whole sites - Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, BBC, Hotmail, and on and on. China is only avoiding the inevitable. Its students come here to study and end up learning as much about their own country as they do ours. Unlike American students, most keep up to date on world affairs. When they are here, for the first time they are reading about things their government hides from them. Their opinions on the Dalai Lama, the Cultural Revolution, and yes, Tiananmen, evolve. When they go back they do not need the internet to discuss what they have learned. They use the same thing that has been used since the dawn of humanity - their voices. And so the truth is spread no matter how much the Chinese government tries to protect itself. Someday all in China will know the truth - when the leaders who were alive twenty years ago are no longer alive and younger, more educated leaders have taken their place. When you have finished this Op Ed and the article that follows it about what is being banned, read the secretly released memoirs of one of China's greatest leaders - Premier Zhao Ziyang - who went into the Square before the massacre to warn the students of what Deng Xiaoping was about to do to them - and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. But he wanted the truth to be known - because his love of China was greater than the frailties of a government whose decisions he could no longer morally uphold. And now, David Lu's Op Ed:

It has been almost twenty years since the Beijing Massacre, commonly known as “The Tiananmen Square Massacre”. Many associate this event with the famous photograph of “tank man”, an unknown rebel who stood in the path to keep these massive tanks from advancing. However, has this event changed China at all, and what do major internet companies have to do with China and us?

In the years following Tiananmen Square up until the present, China has been on the road to a steady economic growth where cities have out produced and brought in much more revenue than small nations. The Olympics being held this summer hopes to further China’s glory and presence on the international stage. With such growth, have the Chinese forgiven the government, or let Tiananmen Square fall to the wayside? Some have, many others haven’t.

Those of the older generation remember clearly the events of the massacre but few dare to speak of it. In fact, the event was meant to be self-contained but Western journalists was able to slip it out. Therefore, this brings us to the youth of China. When China’s top university students were presented with a photo of Tiananmen Square from an undercover BBC reporter, they were baffled. They didn’t know what to make of the photo. The students thought that perhaps the man in front of the tank was conducting some sort of ceremony, or that the photo being shown to them was simply doctored.

How could this have happened? With many of the massacre generation alive, how could the students not know? The answer is that those of that generation don’t speak about it in fear of imprisonment and torture. As for the schools, under government rules, the event is not to be even mentioned.

So what about the internet? In an ever expanding nation, internet access has become more accessible to its citizens every day. The problem therein lies with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems. These companies seek to appease the Chinese government in exchange for a huge market share of users - even if it means putting human rights at risk.

The way these companies appease the Communist government is to censor themselves in accordance with Chinese law and to notify the Chinese government about certain activity. Anything the government finds anti-Communist is blocked from the web. For example, a regular image search for “Tiananmen Square” in the US, whether it be under Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft’s MSN, would return hundreds upon hundreds of pages of results, many of them displaying the “tank man” photo.

However, in China, only four pages return. None of which contain that photo. Though Cisco isn’t known for search engines, Cisco provides communication systems and all different high tech equipment. In this case with China, it helps block internet websites that users try to visit, and also provides an array of high tech gadgetry to police who track down offenders.

But perhaps the worst of all these companies is Yahoo. It is mostly known for its two hugely controversial cases. One involves a Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was known for sending information about Chinese censorship of news to the Asia Democracy Forum. When the Chinese government found out, Yahoo handed over Tao's email account information as well as his IP which helped the government track down where the message originated. As a result he has been sentenced to serve ten years in prison.

The other case also caused the victim to receive ten years in prison. Wei Xiaoning was an engineer by profession who protested the one party system in China. His method of protesting was to post electronic journals expressing his ideas for democratic reform. As a result, the Chinese government found out about this and once again Yahoo assisted. The results of both these cases have put Yahoo under scrutiny from human rights organizations. They label the company irresponsible and have created movements for users to boycott Yahoo services, though the effects have yet to be seen.

So what does this have to do with US? Not too far back many of us were deeply concerned with Google who was under questioning to present searches from every user in its database. It was clear that many of us were outraged, and the same should be applied to Google again, as well as Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN and Cisco Systems. Every time you look up something through these services you are supporting these companies in their compliance with anti-human rights movements. There are many other alternatives that can be used such as Ask.com, Altavista.com, and so on.

The Chinese people are not taking this sitting down either. In fact every year the numbers of demonstrations in China have increased steadily. Perhaps there is hope yet, and that “tank man” will live on forever.
 

China Blocks Websites on Eve of Tiananmen Anniversary
06/03/09

The Chinese government has tightened its grip on both mainstream and new media on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

For the past couple of days now, online media and social networking sites are abuzz with updates on websites that got caught under the Great Firewall of China.

As of June 3, blocked sites include the BBC, popular video site YouTube, Yahoo, Flickr.com, micro-blog site Twitter, as well as blog sites such as Wordpress, Blogger and Blogspot. Microsoft's Bing.com, Live.com and Hotmail have also been blocked. Google has released a list of websites that are reportedly 'under maintenance'.

According to the 'Financial Times', the extent of China's censorship of foreign media and the Internet has "not been seen since the crackdown that preceded the Beijing Olympics" in August 2008.

The British international business paper further added that deliveries of foreign newspapers have been banned by government agencies. Satellite news broadcasts have also been reportedly stopped.

The campaign, the 'Financial Times' added, is "apparently aimed at extinguishing every reference to the 1989 pro-democracy student movement, which the People's Liberation Army suppressed on June 4 of that year".

The magazine also suspects that its May 30 issue interview with Tiananmen dissident Bao Tong was "either not delivered to subscribers or censored".

Wire reports also say that the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China had received "at least three reports of authorities blocking reporting at Tiananmen Square and intimidating journalists or their sources".

There are said to be more than 6,000 web sites and blogs that are currently blocked in China. According to China's official online research agency, China Internet Network Information Center, Internet users in the mainland totaled 298 million in 2008, or 22.6 percent of the population. In 2008, Chinese bloggers numbered 162 million and mobile phone Internet users reached 117.6 million. The number of Web news users numbered 234 million.

In August 2008, China has reportedly blocked the popular Apple's iTunes Music Store and Amazon following the release of the 20-song compilation 'Songs for Tibet — The Art of Peace'.

"Twitter has become immensely popular as a way for sharing politically sensitive news, and text messaging has been used to organize protests around community concerns," writes Cynthia Wong of the U.S.-based Center for Democracy and Technology (http://blog.cdt.org/2009/06/02/chinese-voices-silenced-again-as-tiananmen-media-blackout-begins/), a non-profit organization working for Internet freedom worldwide, in an article on June 2.

By blocking online sites on the eve of the Tiananmen anniversary, Wong says that the Chinese government "once again looks to shut down online discourse over the Tiananmen Square incident and deny an entire generation of Chinese access to a key piece of their country's history".

Chinese bloggers and online users, including the English-language sites such as media organization Danwei.org, have been comparing notes with fellow Internet users and looking for ways to get access to the blocked sites.

"Can't be more crazy. Sure I can live with YouTube blocked, but blocking my email? Any ideas of this will be undone after two days?" complained one blogger.

Another user named 'CNMark' said: "As of June 2, 9 p.m., here in Guangdong, I cannot even access Google now, but Gmail still works."

From Nanjingren: "And we've been having only sporadic access to most Google services here in Nanjing. Gmail has always been available, but Google search, Google Calendar, Google Reader, and a couple of others have been hit or miss (mostly miss)..."

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 was a series of pro-democracy movements led by students and intellectuals that began in April of that year, following the death of progressive leader Hu Yaobang. Unconfirmed reports placed the number of deaths at 2,600, while official figure, according to government records, was 241 killed and 7,000 injured.

Reprinted from Asia Media Forum, 06/03/09
http://www.theasiamediaforum.org/node/1309

http://www.mindanaoexaminer.com/news.php?news_id=20090606215035
 

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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0604/1224248023524.html

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