Thinking about the other, darker China (On the train going north, Japan)

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(Day 155 on the road)So I was not going to climb Mount Fuji (not yet at least). As it turned out, Frances' friend John would have no need for his railpass the next day (which allows unlimited train travel for a certain period in Japan) and he had offered it to me. Perfect, thank you so much! I spent the evening planning where to go in Japan to make best use of the railpass, which was valid for one more day only. I decided to go up to Hokkaido in the very north of Japan, about 10 hours and four different trains away. Japan's biggest national park Daisetsuzan is located right in the centre of Hokkaido, and I was planning to some extended hiking in the area. The trains up north were busy, and for most part of the journey I was standing.

The journey though gave me some time to think about China, both about the wonderful time I had spent there and of course what had happened to my friend who had just spent two and a half years in labour camp in China (see previous entry). I had done some research on his case and was surprised that it is actually quite a high profile one, with Amnesty International and even the European Parliament involved and petitioning the Chinese government for his release (to no avail). On all the websites that I read however there was no mentioning of his release that Frances had told me about, so I hope that he actually free as I write these lines.

This case seems to show the other, darker side of China, the one that you are not supposed to witness when watching the perfectly staged Olympic Games, the China that ruthlessly suppresses any kind of opinion or thought that does not conform with the official, party line of things. As long as you play by their rules, China is a wonderful place to travel and possibly live in, but if you fail to comply, your life is worth nothing to the government, and it can and will be taken from you in an instance.

Further, I was also thinking about why I had received so many offensive comments about some of the things I had written about China. Up to now, I had been thinking that this is mostly explained by China's situation today: In a country where freedom of speech is completely unheard of as nobody is allowed to criticise, there is no such thing as a public debate about things which people are perhaps not happy about. So when I as a foreigner come along and write about my experiences and observations during my travels there (not all of them positive for China, just like any other country really), people get it wrong not fully understanding the concept of freedom of speech (and who can blame them with a government like that?).

However, by now I am thinking different. Have you ever heard about "China's Army of 50-cent Propagandists"? It is fascinating: These are in essence people who are paid by the Communist Party to make China look more favourable on the Internet. So instead of only relying on the traditional form of censorship (suppression), they are now employing a much more proactive stance by bringing its own message across. For instance, these people actively engage on webblogs like mine and push the Communist Party's point of view whilst making it look like they are just regular readers writing their own opinion (have a look at my blog entry about the Sichuan earthquake for a good example). For every comment they leave that makes China look favourable, they are paid 50 mao, or roughly 7 US cent by the Chinese government. As one Chinese party official justifies this practise: "In an information society, the Internet is an important position in the ideological domain. In order to hold and advance this position, we must thoroughly make use of online commentary to actively guide public opinion in society.” The number or people doing this kind of work (mostly part-time as I understand it) is estimated at numbering 280.000! In any case, this gives the negative comment on my website a much deeper meaning than I had initially thought. There is a great article about this in the Far Eastern Economic Review , and they sum this up as follows: "They set out to neutralize undesirable public opinion by pushing pro-Party views through chat rooms and Web forums, reporting dangerous content to authorities".

Next stop: Daisetsuzan National Park (Hokkaido, Japan).



To view my photos, have a look at pictures.beiske.com. And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).

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