Comments on: China, bias, misunderstanding

By: maps to look at online

maps to look at online — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:12:19 +0000

[...] the Chinese blogosphere and issues of bias, misunderstanding and miscommunication. It??s become vehttp://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/06/28/china-bias-misunderstanding/Yahoo! Local &amp Maps Blog &187 Blog Archive &187 Yahoo! Maps Global …By the way, the maps look [...]

By: Jotman

Jotman — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:22:15 +0000

“Anti-cnn . . . Writers on the site did excellent fact-checking . . . ”

Really?!

http://jotman.blogspot.com/2008/04/fact-checking-chinas-netizens-expose-of.html

By: Media and causes

Media and causes — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:47:57 +0000

[...] Zuckerman has a couple of recent posts about Darfur and Tibet, I found both very good to read. “China, bias, and misunderstanding” is about the disconnect between Chinese and Western perceptions of Tibet — for example, how and [...]

By: Cos

Cos — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:38:08 +0000

>> Han Chinese tend to offer reflections like, “These ungrateful minorities – look what we did for their economy! We built infrastructure and sanitation for them and this is what we get?” <<

I have heard and seen this sentiment from several sources in recent months, including a friend who’s living in China currently. I find it deeply disturbing, in a way that makes me … the mental equivalent of queasy. Because it echoes a strain strain of Israeli right-wing thinking I remember from the 80s, that was pretty common in the 70s too from what I’ve read: Israel brought infrastructure and functional government and personal rights and freedom of the press to the West Bank and Gaza, etc. etc.

It’s not false, exactly. It is a sort of bubble mentality that dehumanizes people in an unseeing, patronizing way. It is a banal evil, in my opinion, but the people who indulge in it are often very good people who would be surprised by what they’re indulging in if only they could see it.

I don’t know how deeply the similarities run, but this is what it reminds me of, and why I react so violently (internally) to Chinese views on Tibet. Partly, perhaps, out of a mild association guilt: my country, or a particular cultural strain within it, did the same thing, and it has contributed to the country’s deterioration. Yet because it is in a sense true, I found it partly convincing for a time, and I remember that.

By: China « Michael Sieburg

China « Michael Sieburg — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:52:15 +0000

[...] China June 30, 2008, 12:52 am Filed under: East Asia Ethan Zuckerman writes an interesting post from the Global Voices summit in Budapest: China, bias, and misunderstanding. [...]