China’s great censorship wall

BEIJING – In China, lack of access makes all the difference.

One very large political party – the Chinese Communist Party – is at the head of the world’s third largest military force and controls the entire country. Dissent is punishable by law, and censorship is rampant. They are very scared of the swine flu and make deliciously cheap takeout food. This is all I knew when I stepped off the plane in Beijing.

A week later, I know that while censorship in China is a big deal, I’m not going to be thrown into jail for shooting off about totalitarian governance. I know because I’ve tried.

So, if it is indeed OK for me to talk about and against a system that essentially runs this place, why are all foreign news channels blocked, and why do I have to watch the 32 channels prescribed by China Central Television – aka the government? Why is it that I cannot access any blog, YouTube, most BBC pages, and, sometimes, something as basic as Wikipedia?

A country of 1.3 billion people is hard to control, and there are bound to be millions of opinions. How is it that one party has been able to rule this country and stay in power for so long? Especially with the recent economic progress, urban voices have got to be hankering for change, right?

I have come to realize it is perfectly acceptable for people to discuss the excessive censorship by the Chinese government, as long as it is vocal and private.

What the Chinese Communist Party fears most of all is the voice of millions being broadcast for the world to see. As long as the people keep their dissent in small groups and do not publicize it, their dissent is perfectly acceptable.

I don’t know what else can explain the fact that my professors are openly critical of the communist regime yet still no single organized opposition confronts the government. (The Chinese Democratic Party has been outlawed since 1998.)

The most coveted job in China is working for the Chinese Communist Party. The loyalties of all the people in power are to the Chinese Communist Party. Democracy is a distant dream, and anyone who speaks of it publicly is up for arrest. Dissent is unlikely, as there is no social platform for it.

What is one to do – create a Facebook event for “Dissenters” and hope people show up? Facebook would be banned in a heartbeat if that happened.

The imaginatively named “Golden Firewall” initiative blocks all access to anything that disagrees with the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party. The virtual wall has effectively created a perfect online world – one in which everyone agrees with the Chinese Communist Party and holds it up as the ideal.

There is no system of checks and balances. Staples of free speech such as newspapers, TV and the Internet are heavily regulated and wholly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

In theory, one can try to get published in the newspaper or appear on TV, but it just won’t realistically happen. One can try to blog or vlog, but it will be taken down. If bigwigs like YouTube, BlogSpot and Wikipedia can be blocked, one person has no chance.

As an opinionated, red-blooded 20-year-old, I have a lot to say about China. I just don’t have a voice. No matter how I wield it.