Living in a foreign country both necessitates and demands from an individual a certain ability to adapt and adjust. Whether it be having to present a store clerk with a receipt before you purchase an item, the irrelevance of Western concepts of morality and justice, or that filthy 70s era red sofa in your living room that only a man as tacky as Saddam Hussein would admire, one will inevitably run face-first into the fact that living in a foreign country is, in short, foreign.
This extracts from the ordinary laowai a laundry list of silly concessions that, we feel, account for seemingly flippant Chinese “crazy foreigner” accusations. Some of us drink heavily in public because we cannot stomach doing so upon the 1962 bright orange shag carpet in the middle of our rented apartment. Abusive forages into one compartment of our lives are how we cope in lieu and denial of normal functionality in another. However, one of these things it appears many foreign jackals are absolutely unable to tolerate is China’s wholesale embargo on Twitter and Facebook, which is just approaching its one-year anniversary.
To summarize the situation, China restricts its internet users from using both Twitter and Facebook. It also does a breathtakingly accurate job of blocking ordinary proxy servers so often employed in the past to circumvent the Firewall. Many now resort to paying money each month for private proxy servers that enable surfage – a phenomenon that should not be seen as a symptom of China’s internet initiatives, but rather the foreign jackal’s own addiction to such a website in the first place. Anyway, rather than banging on about our lack of status updates, or whatever, we here at Shlaowai HQ have artfully employed our understanding of geopolitics in order to get to the bottom of this seemingly bottomless vexation.
My answer, simply stated, is Iran. Iran, and social unrest of ethnic minorities in China’s northwest, people called Uighurs. I’m serious. Here’s why:
1) Iran, March-June, 2009: During the last Iranian national election, many felt that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad beat his primary rival, Hossein Mousavi, is a deeply questionable and disingenuous manner. This led to massive public unrest in Tehran, mostly on the part of youths, which was eventually put down by the Iranian military as commissioned by Ahmadinejad. Images of the bloody aftermath of these measures were transmitted to the world via young Iranians through social networking media such as Twitter and Facebook. Until this moment, social media had yet to be used to this particular end.
2) Xinjiang Province, China, June-July, 2009: Immediately following the events of the Iranian election, Muslim ethnic minorities (heretofore: Uighurs) began to riot in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province. Though the major events were reported only in Urumqi, the provincial capital, unrest spread throughout Xinjiang’s Uighur enclaves. This lead to counter-riots on part of The Han (95% of China is Han…an ethnic “majority”), blood and police in the streets, etc. It was messy, and it was also the exact moment that we all began noticing that we could no longer access Twitter and Facebook.
In a nutshell, the Iranian election showcased the ability of technology to circumvent the various restrictions of an authoritarian government. Iran’s effort to clamp down on the protestors, as well as its attempts to obstruct what protestors projected beyond Iranian borders, was severely curtailed by these two websites-cum-real time news outlets. The Xinjiang riots, while not extraordinary for a country well-acquainted with various stresses of hazily defined border regions and disputed sovereignty claims (Spratly Islands, Diaoyu Islands, …others…), constituted a localized pretext to assert control over the online dispersal and circulation of information.
These two major events, in such quick succession, galvanized Beijing’s efforts to neutralize and/or remove mediums for communication over which it lacks complete control. They were immensely impactful and significant moments signaling what certainly feels like a new chapter in China’s policy towards the internet. Combined with China’s efforts to regulate online cultural content, as well as the pseudo-recent and well-publicized Google issue, they offer a glimpse and set precedent for the future of internet use in China.
Judging by the way things are shaping up, I’d hedge my bets that beyond approving sites which give China some degree of international face (BBC, NY Times, WSJ, etc.), China will continue upon a path of limiting access to seemingly harmless sites, albeit sites beyond is immediate realm of control. Sites like Twitter and Facebook will have to trade control for access in order to operate.
One of the best quotes I’ve heard from a Chinese person was “Sorry for Google, sorry for myself”
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Hey man those couches are PIMP
Hey, don’t use private proxy servers from China, there are reports that most of these companies who provide private server from US are not up to the mark. They often sneak into your username and password. There is greater possibility of your account getting hacked by the company which provides these servers.
SO what kind of service can you recommend instead?
While I was in China I used TOR. Google it. TOR is a free pseudo-proxy which once set up on your computer, it changes your IP to look like you’re from another country. Then it is changed again every 5 minutes. Your tracks are totally untraceable. You obviously cannot download it directly from the official website (http://www.torproject.org is also blocked by the golden firewall), but you can find it via various torrents.
Very true, was thinking about that the other night. They just direct you to a “facebook” page, you enter your name and pass, then nothing happens besides you giving away your info.
good call my friend!
Does any use Freedur. Its not working for anymore and it looks its blocked is anyone else having that problem?
Guys…it happened looks like the fed just read shlaowai and decided to balance what China does
….the fed has apparently shut down 73000 websites in word press. They will blame everything on the terrorist and history of abuse….I dont think the freedom we enjoyed on the internet is going to last too long 
here
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/first-amendment-under-attack-feds-shut/
http://wwwery.com/3366-why-did-web-host-shut-down-all-73000-blogs-at-once.html
There is no such thing as true guy just large amounts of privilages. Everything cost a little something and if you step over the line they (who ever they may be) are going to tax some of it away in the name of what ever point they are trying to make.
Stop trying to abuse the system and you can keep your false freedom.
Thank you for the history lesson. However, if you read Twitter or most of Facebook over here in America, you guys would be glad the under-educated don’t have access to publish their most inane, misspelled, and overly political garbage.
However, it does make me wonder if the phenomenon of crowd sourcing has made it to China. To wit, check this graphical knowledge: Cognitive Surplus Visualized. Pretty simple, yet impactful. If that is the cognitive surplus of 300 million, imagine what could be done with 1.3 Billion
Does the trend to quash individually published media also extend to sites like this and others? Do Chinese people “crowd source” things on-line besides WoW gold and artifacts?
Frankly, I think the Xingjiang thing is just an excuse to shut up the access to these sites.
It is still a luxary to freely express your idea in internet regardless it is constructive or desctructive. Our mouth gets shut up . that is it..
nah, not an excuse. they don’t need an excuse to shut it down — they need a reason to shut it down. facebook operated unabated in this country for years. xinjiang was less complicit in the shutting down. really, it was what happened in Iran prior to Xinjiang. Xinjiang was just a congruence, a palpable hypothetical, a “what if”. real time pictures of unrest and violence and police reaction, uploaded instantly, beyond the realm of control, equals anathema to 和平与发展．