Bystander’s man in New York sends word of a discussion at the Asia Society on whether China’s attitude to the press is changing ahead of the Olympics. Much confirms the notion that press freedom in the country waxes and wanes with the political season, but that the Internet is forcing Beijing’s propagandists into new way of managing the news. They now must frame the discussion, not dictate the stories — much as happens in the West.
But Bystander’s man says what most caught his ear were remarks by Michael Anti, also known as Zhao JIng, a journalist whose political blog was shut down by Microsoft in 2005 in a flurry of controversy. Anti said an emerging generation of Chinese are forging a new sense of Chinese identity.
It comprises those those born post-1980 who have no memories of the Cultural Revolution; barely memories of Tiananmen in 1989. They are connected to each other and information by the Internet is a way no previous generation was. They — even the intellectuals and liberals among them –readily wrap themselves in the flag, not out of any traditional sense of patriotism of nationalism, but from a pride in their country born of two decades of economic growth and China’s growing standing in the world. Fail to grasp that distinction between blind patriotism and national pride and you miss something important about the new China and the face it presents to the outside world.
Anti also raised the notion that this new generation might be creating proto-NGOs within China by its use of Web bulletin boards to discuss issues, trade information and promote activism beyond established state and party structures. Our man in New York says this is a tenuous conclusion but a trend to be watched.
