“I Think China’s Internet Is Open”

The following is a translation of this post from lipuman.com.

Translation

A people.com.cn user has written a letter to American Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, responding to her claims that China restricts the internet and censors information. This letter wasn’t actually sent to Ms Clinton, nor to the American State Department nor even the American Embassy, but most bizarrely sent to people.com.cn.

But strangeness follows strangeness. I always thought that the Chinese internet was quite free. Just like the Soviets could show their displeasure at Reagan at the Kremlin, we can not only do the same at the Foreign Ministry, but also at people.com.cn, or even go to Washington to do so. Look at the cover of that fine upstanding newspaper “Global Times” and you can see a flood of denounciations of Ms Clinton, have at that mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party “the People’s Daily” and people.com.cn and you’ll see that it’s filled with stories criticising America’s hegemony.

At the same time I believe that our government, a government that manages the internet, is a government that serves the people and is always looking after their interests. There is indeed some information that they don’t want us to see, but this is only because they think that it would have a bad influence on us. I remember once when I was young I set a fire and burnt the firewood that had taken a year to gather, and didn’t dare tell my parents. If I they had known that it had been me that lit the fire they would have been furious, which would be like cutting one’s nose off to spite one’s face.

The writer of the letter, Wang Jie, said that his stories were often forwarded for no reason at all, and that this was a headache. I think that this should be taken care of. Why do people have to forward on other people’s work without their permission, pushing it in everyone’s faces infringing on copyright? Can’t they be a bit more tactful about it? Why do they have to make other people read it, and give people headaches? That’s why I think that our government should make a law, saying that media outlets that use Wang Jie’s article should have to remove his name and then cover it up, with a Facebook like name, so that the author can’t be known or receive headaches from it.

That’s it, that’s where the mistake is made. Isn’t allowing the victim to know about it just adding insult to injury? Just not telling them is better. We haven’t even grown up yet, we’re still children, our brains haven’t developed fully, wasn’t there an inferior time that was called the south east Asian sickness?  That’s why the less you know about some things on the internet the better, you avoid overusing your brain, excessive pressure, getting arrythmia would be even worse.

Yesteday a coworker told me that there was a part of Chen Junzhong’s latest book “Golden Age” in which the government developed a drug to help people live with more happiness. They dumped it in all of the rivers of the country and in any place where there was standing water. This made everyone happier. I think that Chen Junzhong is thinking a little too conservatively, why didn’t they just give everyone a drug to make them go crazy? Didn’t Jesus say it when he went into a trance when he was crucified? They know not what they do. This shows that the collective unconscious is the thing that makes people happiest. If the entire country went mad, wouldn’t that be a hormonious “Golden Age”. Cheng Junzhong probably didn’t write anything like that because she thought it would be insulting to disabled people, right?

Of course China’s internet is open and free. Can Ms Clinton not visit our sites at any time she pleases? Not only China’s internet is open, but China’s jails are open. – We can enter at any time. Our hospitals are also open, we can apply for surgery to check our lungs at any time. Our organised criminal gangs are free and open. – You could be a boss today, but tomorrow you could freely go to jail and become a member. Our corrupt officials are even more free, they can get money whenever they like and then have the possibility of an American green card…

Is there anything else that can be said?