Occupy Movement Worries China - SFGate

[WillyT]

Occupy movement worries China
Joel Brinkley - SFGate
Saturday, November 12, 2011


Protesters at HSBC headquarters in Hong Kong, part of the growing Asia-Pacific presence of
Occupy Wall Street. Photo: Laurent Fievet / AFP/Getty Images

<snip>

...

The People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece, ties itself in knots over Occupy Wall Street. One recent story's headline asked if "the Wall Street protests are the U.S. version of the Arab Spring?" The paper added: "The U.S. media is worried that riots similar to the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa may occur in the United States." (In 35 years as a journalist, I have never noticed that we the media have had a collective political concern about anything.)

But a few paragraphs later, the paper tripped over itself, saying: "The so-called Arab Spring is objectively nonexistent. It's just a beautiful name given by the United States based on its own wishful thinking." I guess the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria weren't told of this.

Global Times writer Wang Yizhou, a professor at Peking University, remarked: "Things would be very different if the protests took place in China. The government would take powerful measures, and the financial giants would dare not to refuse change."

Actually, China has already taken powerful measures. The China Digital Times reports that "a long list of banned keywords has been uncovered" that are blocked from display on search engines. Chief among them: the word "occupy" followed by every city in the country, like "Occupy Guangzhou." And a Shanghai news site reports: "Multiple sources have told the Shanghaiist that police have been going around bars asking foreigners if they've got anything to do with the Occupy Wall Street movement," afraid that those people "might start an Occupy Shanghai."

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More: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/12/IN8H1LS2PO.DTL

:kick:

[rug]

1. I wonder why.

[lunatica]

2. Someday the people of China will have their say

It's just a matter of time. Everything under the sun has it's season. The people will have their say.

[Quartermass]

3. It's Ironic

OWS is protesting the rich people and Communists are worried about them. Isn't Communism all about ending social class? If so, then they really should be on the side of OWS.

Side note: I also find it funny that the acronym for occupy Wallstreet spells OW!

[xchrom]

4. Communists are not automatically immune

From the lure of power & wealth that capitalism provides.

[MedleyMisty]

6. There was an article posted here the other day

about how China's elites have filtered air while their 99% breathe polluted air. They have the same sort of power structure we do.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. China is as communists as we are capitalist... that means

not so much.

Mercantilist... I think we have come full circle.

[JDPriestly]

5. So, next time you buy something "Made in China," please remember

that your are supporting the industry of a nation that is a dictatorship.

Yet another reason to avoid buying the "Made in China" junk.

China is what democracy does not look like.

[applegrove]

8. I knew a Chinese student here in Ottawa. He was always terrified whenever

there was a demonstration on Parliament Hill. I think it is bred in the bone in China to be terrified of demonstrations... they seem to be directly connected to huge, anarchist, violent,mobs in his mind. Part of the propaganda of the Communist Chinese state. I'm not surprised they are reacting this way.