Episode 2 of Stilgherrian Live Alpha is being “recorded live” tonight at 9.30pm Sydney time, though do feel free to arrive early. My good friend and colleague Zern Liew will be joining me from Singapore to talk about his recent visit to China’s three largest cities, amongst other things. I’ve also spoken to Ustream technical support and I think we’ve solved the talkback / co-host problem… fingers crossed!
Links for 30 April 2008
Here are the web links I’ve found over the last few days, posted a bit later than I’d intended. Cope.
Why the Great Firewall of China works
A lengthy article in The Atlantic explains just why China’s “Great Firewall” is so effective. As Boing Boing summarises, “The kicker is the social and political impact… simply by making it inconvenient to read certain sites, the Chinese government can keep politically charged issues from surfacing in the national discourse.”
Lost control of the prices
Just heard on CNN, a Beijing woman brandishing a lettuce and complaining that “the government has lost control of prices”. Yes, dear, that’s called a “free market economy”. Get used to it.
China’s online population explosion
China now has 137 million Internet users. With this level of growth, in the next few years there’ll be more Chinese on the Internet than Americans. How will that change things, eh?
China: Giant Contradictions
China blipped up twice in a week. I stumbled upon Steward Brand’s summary of a speech by long-time China watcher Orville Schell, China: Giant Contradictions.
These days you cannot think usefully about China and its potential futures without holding in your mind two utterly contradictory views of what is happening there. On the one hand, a robust and awesomely growing China; on the other hand a brittle China, parts of it truly hellish.
And I received a poignant email which illustrates the personal impact of change in China.