Doing business in China is a minefield. Even international companies that sell clothing, such as H&M, can get inadvertently caught up in Chinese politics, and then crucified by Chinese netizens. What country you are from, what you say, who you are, can be either now or in the future used against you and your company by China. It is unbelievable, really. China is on a mission to change the world to become China friendly in every way, and will pummel anyone or any country that stands in its way.
Chinese human rights lawyer Xie Yang 谢阳, in undated photo (left), and Chinese government photo (2017 Mar 02) still in jail after over 1.5 years. Though he seems to have survived his 6 months of torture, he is obviously thin. I could hardly recognize him from his photo.
In January I had written about a Chinese lawyer Xie Yang 谢阳, who was tortured by Chinese police for 6 months, and has been in jail for over 1.5 years so far. Because his story has been widely published in the Western press, the Chinese government has started a a propaganda campaign against him and his lawyers, alleging Xie Yang’s story of torture was all made up by his lawyers, and is, as a Trumpism, “fake news”. His lawyer Chen Jiangang (陈建刚) has tried to refute this. I’m unsure about his other lawyer Liu Zhengqing (刘正清). New York Times
2009 Obama (left) vs 2017 Trump (right) Inauguration photos in Washington DC. AP. The Obama Inauguration holds so many more people that you must say he was more popular.
Wondering, I am, about the truth in today’s news. US President Trump says something, the press refutes with facts, then he doubles down and continues to insist his version is correct. And this, from a US president. I find it odd that someone of such a high office would do and say such “alternative truths”, as he puts it. Really, there are no alternative truths, only truths backed by evidence. There are different conclusions made from the same original evidence, but no alternative truths. Alternative truths are close to a lie. What do we tell our kids, after years of us espousing everyone to tell the truth, when people in high office begin to lie.
Free, the Internet should be, freedom to express oneself, is the standard thinking of most people. No one should be able to censor content. All should be able to read whatever they wish, whatever they can find. China, with their “Great Firewall of China”, does censor content for their 1.4B citizens, and is widely condemned for their radical actions. I am rethinking censorship of the Internet. In light of the rise of ISIS and other terrorist organizations maybe we should consider censorship for certain situations.
As my Chinese teacher said to me in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square incident, history is fluid and can be rewritten. While he nor I believed this at the time, in China this is indeed true. With China’s sophisticated propaganda machine on full throttle, the perception of China, globally and domestically can be changed. This is how China works, and works very effectively.
