Let Freedom Ring? Not So Fast. China’s Still China
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By JOSEPH KAHN
Published: May 3, 2004
Original URL: http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/pubvp/2004/03/200403282246.shtml. IMHO it´s neither deep nor timely (the propaganda department has been there forever), but it is undoubtedly significant. And it´s a critical test for the “new” leaders, who will fail for sure.
Let Freedom Ring? Not So Fast. China´s Still China.
Published: May 3, 2004
EIJING, May 2 - During the Cultural Revolution, China´s propaganda department often made hyperbolic charges against intellectuals - capitalist roaders, enemies of the people - accused of betraying Mao Zedong.
So when Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Beijing University, was searching for words to describe China´s still all-powerful censors and standard-setters more than 30 years later, he borrowed from its lexicon of vitriol.
Doug Kanter/ Polaris for The New York Times
Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Beijing University, wrote in an essay that the censors, all-powerful in the Cultural Revolution, were still limiting speech in China. The essay was banned but was still widely read.