It’s not everyday that the big US liberal blogs and portals carry a story about China, so I was happy to see Arianna’s profile today of a a young Chinese woman Time magazine has deemed one of the 100 most influential bloggers in the world.
Zeng Jinyan is the online progeny of Wang Wei Lin, the protester who blocked a column of advancing tanks during the Tiananmen Uprising in 1989. When Zeng’s husband, AIDS and environmental activist Hu Jia, was taken into custody and detained by the Chinese government without any legal proceedings last year, Zeng, who is now 22, started a blog detailing her experiences and the oppressive activities of the country’s secret police. Since then, her blog has been blocked in China, and she and her husband have been harassed, intimidated, and subjected to round-the-clock surveillance. But she has steadfastly continued to blog, attracting an international audience with her sardonic style — and especially her courage (“These people are like flies after a piece of meat,” she wrote of the “goons” who are constantly watching her.)
She is Tiananmen 2.0.
I’ve written about Hu Jia before here and the oppression of AIDS activists in China many, many times. I see it as one of the nation’s stupidest blunders, harassing or imprisoning citizens who should be made national heroes. It is pig-headed in every way, perpetuating the notion (for which there is ample evidence) that the government would rather cover up AIDS than deal with it, and that crusaders for noble causes are rewarded with harassment, house arrest or worse.
I suppose if there’s light to be seen at the end of this tunnel, it’s this: China has made big strides in the past five years to raise public awareness of AIDS; international pressure helped convince the party to ease up on AIDS activist Gao Yaojie, and despite Zeng Jinyan’s going on the record and capturing global media attention on the plight of Hu Jia, she is still telling her story, even if it’s blocked in China. That wouldn’t have happened even a few years ago.
I know, those victories don’t seem enormous, but I see them at least as proof that the government is becoming increasingly less repellent. It’s a slow process and there are lots of steps backwards along the way. And there’s one thing I’ve now made up my mind about: pressure from bloggers and the mass media and activists around the world really does make a difference. More than ever before China cares about the face it puts forward and is increasingly sensitive to spin that threatens its image as “a friend to all the world.” Silence equals death, and every little bit helps, no matter how small your blog is.
1
By Charlie
And this is why you need to pack in the day job and get back to blogging regularly Richard – it’s much harder to find interesting China stories like Zeng’s and Gao’s now your offline during the week!
May 13, 2007 @ 4:43 pm | Comment
2
By richard
Would that I could, Charlie. Alas, a man’s gotta eat. About 18 months, then I should be set free.
May 13, 2007 @ 6:39 pm | Comment
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By Bill
Are you aware of Opera (the same Opera that has the browser of the same name) being banned on the mainland? I and some friends cannot accesss logs now or the Opera Community Homepage.
May 13, 2007 @ 7:04 pm | Comment
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By davesgonechina
I don\\\’t mind ZJY getting the attention, that\\\’s great, but Arianna Huffington doesn\\\’t know shit.
http://tenementpalm.blogspot.com/2007/05/writing-time-100-profile-no-experience.html
May 13, 2007 @ 8:29 pm | Comment
5
By mor
Richard,
I have to agree with Charlie. Despite occasional disagreements (or rather because I enjoy discussions here) your website is one of the few I go to almost every time I go online. But as you said blogging doesn’t make a living. Anyway, compliments! Having a full time job and organizing such a blogsite is something I couldn’t do.
One question about Arianna’s post. She talks about “Wang Wei Lin, the protester who blocked a column of advancing tanks during the Tiananmen Uprising in 1989”. I always thought that nobody really knows that man’s identity nor what happened to him afterwards. Is Wang Weilin his real name or was it just made up in order not to call him “Tank Man” all the time?
May 13, 2007 @ 8:50 pm | Comment
6
By richard
mor, some sources say as a matter of fact that the Tank Man was Wang Weilin, but I’ve never seen any proof. I don’t think we will ever know.
Even when I was working, I always had time to put up at least a post a day. Unfortunately, I now have to go for weeks without putting up anything, as my job forces me to work nearly every night after I get home from work. It’s only on weekends that I can even think of devoting big blocks of time to this hobby, and over the next year even weekend blogging will become more and more a luxury. This week, with a lot of people still away for the May holiday, I was able to put up some new material, but those days of 10 posts a day are over for now. Thanks for sticking around, even when I can’t provide an endless strem of fresh material.
May 13, 2007 @ 9:36 pm | Comment
7
By richard
Dave, I always presumed Arianna didn’t know squat about China, and the Wang Weilin reference proved it, and it bugged me, too. On the other hand, she doesn’t claim that she knows anything, and I thought it was great that she brought this story to the forefront among an audience that is usually not so interested in what goes on over here.
May 13, 2007 @ 9:50 pm | Comment
8
By HongXing
I do not understand what is the big thing about this Tank man. From watching the video (real or fake?), it looks like his position had some distance from the tank. If the tank driver really wants to kill him, then he need to accelarate the tank. It takes some time for the tank to accelerate, so if Wang Weilin saw the tank accelrating, he would have enough time reaction time to step aside. So this is a totally safe position for Wang Weilin.
Also, I think Wang Weilin knew that he was under cameras from the West, and he knew the PLA was not like the US Army, and would never crush a civilian like the US Army did in Waco Texas. So by standing in front of this tank, he knew he was totally safe, but it would make him famous in the Western Media, because Western Media always loves this kind of “one man against the dictatorship” images, this kind of very shallow and very “hype” images.
So my conclusion is that Wang Weiling is a good publicity guy and very good at making himself famous. He is a smart guy. He is probably a millinaire in the US right now, making about $60,000 to give speech about how quickly China must collapse. He is most likely living in Long Island, his house is a big mansion.
He tells his son everyday: “Your father is a hero. I took advantage of PLA’s kindness and the West’s naiveness.”
May 14, 2007 @ 1:35 am | Comment
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By otherlisa
Thanks for my laff of the day, Hong Xing.
/snark
May 14, 2007 @ 2:10 am | Comment
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By mor
I think there should be something like a special prize for people like Red Star, maybe a medal with an inscription: “Comedian of the month at the Peking Duck”.
May 14, 2007 @ 3:42 am | Comment
11
By Arty
I do not understand what is the big thing about this Tank man. From watching the video (real or fake?), it looks like his position had some distance from the tank.
The video is real.
Wang Weilin is a pesudo name. The name was published by British Tabloid Sunday Express by a journalist who still can’t prove his source. Based on where he was and he was holding two shopping bags at the time, he is unlikely to be a student. More like an ordianry citizen just finished shopping.
The tanks didn’t have to run him over, he is right under the sight of their machine gun mounts. They could just shoot him.
He is probably a millinaire in the US right now, making about $60,000 to give speech about how quickly China must collapse. He is most likely living in Long Island, his house is a big mansion.
He is most like rotting in jail or died already.
“one man against the dictatorship” images
The same thing can be say about Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Mao.
May 14, 2007 @ 3:46 am | Comment
12
By HongXing
“The tanks didn’t have to run him over, he is right under the sight of their machine gun mounts. They could just shoot him.”
1) The machine on the tank is higher than him, and he is already too close to be inside the range of the machine gun. It’s impossible for the machine gun to shoot him, just like it’s impossible for the tank cannon to bomb him. He is too close.
2) It’s impossible for the PLA to kill an innocent civillian, PLA is not the US Army. Please read about Waco, Texas. So Wang Weiling knows PLA will not kill him, so why not let all the cameras record that scene, and make himself famous? Like on those MTV reality TV shows. That’s why I said he’s a very smart publicity person.
May 14, 2007 @ 4:45 am | Comment
13
By ac
HongXing,
As a student from Beijing and participant of the demonstrations in 1989, I can assure you that the video is authentic. The clip was also shown on CCTV at the time. The picture of “tank man” has since become a symbol of incident in the Western media. I don’t think there is anything special about the guy though, many of us did the same thing to stop the army trucks and tanks. We simple didn’t believe the PLA would crush/open fire on it’s own people. To be fair, the PLA did show restraint until the dawn of June 4. Similar incident happened in the US too, Kent State Shooting incident is an example. (If you are not familiar with it, do a search on “Kent State Shooting” on Wikipedia, or watch the movie Forest Gump)
Tiananmen incident was a tragedy and we all should learn the lesson so it will never happen again. Finding out the truth is the first step. There are many exaggerations and mistakes in the Western media’s reports on the incident. For example, here in America, many people still think thousands were killed in Tiananmen square. That is a LIE! Here is a PBS documentary about the incident on YouTube (Chinese version):
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0938BF24000377A1&page=1
Pay attention to Hou Dejian’s (侯德建， student leader/singer from Taiwan) account of what happened (in part.19), he was one of the last to leave the square on June 4. He saw no killing/crushing in Tiananmen square. Watch the performance of Cai Ling (Whose incompetence and misjudgment directly led to the tragedy) in the film, she is worthy of an Oscar.
I’ve seen a lot of documentaries about the incident, but I haven’t found a single credible eyewitness (who saw killing/tank-crushing in the square with his/her own eyes) in these films. Are they that hard to find? All we get is “My student told me he saw it”, “I was told”…
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that there was nobody killed. There are probably 200~300 (my estimate) Most of the shootings happened in the south and west side of the city. Many of the victims were simply bystanders. There were bad guys in the crowds too. One of the soldier was beaten to death and his body was torched near Fuxinmen bridge (å¤å…´é—¨)just a few days before the incident. What would do if you are the soldier inside the tank when somebody try to set your tank on fire and torch you alive?
As Hou Dejian said in the film, we can’t fight liars with lies…
May 14, 2007 @ 5:55 am | Comment
14
By 88
>>1) The machine on the tank is higher than him, and he is already too close to be inside the range of the machine gun.
etc.
The last time I heard this kind of analysis was during the Rodney King trial. The video clearly shows King attacking the helpless policemen, using his face to beat their clubs and what have you.
To sum up, though:
Tian. massacre = Kent State
Tian. massacre = Waco
Tian. massacre = ?? come on… no one said the Bonus Army massacre. You guys are slipping.
May 14, 2007 @ 6:39 am | Comment
15
By mor
“It’s impossible for the PLA to kill an innocent civillian,”
Thanks for that, Red Star, I really feel better now. I always knew, all those people killed in 89 were terrorists anyway.
May 14, 2007 @ 9:29 am | Comment
16
By snow
At the end she said something important, that is, that people like us who tell the truth, or at least try to come close to the truth, really make a difference.
CCP lackies love to say that the CCP doesnt give a hoot about what others think, but that is exactly wrong. They want us to think that, so as to not show any weakness. But they are weak. They are sitting on a landmine and if anyone in the international community dares to speak the truth about China, or hold out on trade, the CCP will be in a difficult position. It wants to brainwash the world and it wants to control the world but its strong point in brainwashing and manipulation, so if those are not in place the CCP will be revealed and the truth will be known and there will be executions on the other end this time. Thats just a scenario, but it seems to me the CCP clings more than anything to lies and blocking info and propaganda, so if we all speak the truth, the Chinese people will have something to compare with the lies of the CCP. Not a lot of people are spreading the truth about China and it is very very important.
Soon the whole world might think what we are saying is not true and believe the CCP, then we will be dissidents and targeted for torture, just like the truth tellers inside, there is much international manipulation doen by the CCP. Its terrible.
May 14, 2007 @ 12:48 pm | Comment
17
By nanheyangrouchuan
Perhaps we could add the Gulja massacre and the death buses to China’s list of non-crimes.
May 14, 2007 @ 2:35 pm | Comment
18
By Arty
2) It’s impossible for the PLA to kill an innocent civillian, PLA is not the US Army. Please read about Waco, Texas. So Wang Weiling knows PLA will not kill him, so why not let all the cameras record that scene, and make himself famous? Like on those MTV reality TV shows. That’s why I said he’s a very smart publicity person.
Unfortunately, no one know who the tank man is. Somehow I don’t even think PLA knows, because there is a possibility that those people who take him away are not secret police. If tank man ever come out, it will hard for him to prove that he is the tank man, too. People have to know who you are for you to be famous. Wang Weiling is simply a pesudo name, and even if that’s his real name. How many Wang Weiling are there in China. Btw, US army is not invovled in WACO Texas, it is the FBI.
May 14, 2007 @ 3:24 pm | Comment
19
By Keir
Thought it was the ATF.
Anyway, thought I’d share my favourite quote regarding Huffington:
“The most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus”
May 14, 2007 @ 7:07 pm | Comment
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By otherlisa
HAH! Love that, Keir.
I’ve met her a bunch of times and gone to fundraiser-type parties at her house. She’s an original, all right.
I really liked her mother. She passed away a few years ago – this tiny Greek woman, always in the kitchen cooking something, very down to earth.
May 15, 2007 @ 1:38 am | Comment
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By stuart
“I am not saying that there was nobody killed. There are probably 200~300 (my estimate)”
My estimate is that you didn’t major in mathematics.
May 17, 2007 @ 3:21 am | Comment
22
By ac
stuart,
Here is a list of the confirmed victims provided by the “Tiananmen Mothers campaign”, it has been 18 years, I think that’s pretty much what they can find.
http://tmc-hk.org/articles.php?do=viewart&id=5&cat=3
The updated number I heard is 187 dead confirmed by parents and relatives.
Do the math yourself.
May 17, 2007 @ 7:06 am | Comment
23
By CCT
I think pressuring Gao Yaojie in any way or shape is shameful. I think originally denying her a visa to the United States is misguided, disgusting, and inhumane.
However, I also think Gao’s views on HIV/AIDS, which is *rarely* discussed by anyone in the Western press, is also inaccurate, disgusting, and potentially dangerous.
It continues to be Gao’s position that HIV/AIDS in China *today* is largely spread by blood transfusion. Her current campaign is to *stop* the Health Ministry from its current education campaign which teaches that HIV is largely transmitted through unsafe activities: unprotected sex with multiple partners, illegal drug use. Her argument is that those are only issues true with foreigners, that this campaign of education unfairly “shames” those infected with HIV.
She’s a very old lady, and her views of 21st century society are quite simply wrong. The only thing worse than being “ashamed” of being a HIV carrier, is dying because you weren’t told that unprotected sex or sharing heroin needles is very high-risk behavior.
May 19, 2007 @ 9:08 am | Comment