Brian, thanks for your reply.
Yes, the reporting from Urumqi was freer than reporting on Tibet last year and freer than the reporting from Iran this year, but you still did not see in the Chinese press criticisms of Chinese government policies, did you? Criticisms of the way security forces handled the protests? Reports saying that Beijing’s charges of outside agitation were bunkum?
With your reference to the Obama administration and MSM, are you trying to equate controls on the American media to Chinese media controls? I hope not.
I made the statements about corruption proceedings based on my time in China and almost a decade of following the matter. No, I have not studied each and every case of corruption. But if you applied that standard, nobody could say anything on any topic.
The Party has allowed limited criticisms of Beijing policies, especially in economic matters, because it has had to. Why did it have to? The internet. But you have not seen challenges to the Communist Party’s right to rule in the press. Criticisms of food-on-subway bans is not especially indicative of a free press. Let’s not try to elevate some minor improvement from the Maoist era as a big deal, especially when the political system has become progressively more respressive since 2002.
