Thursday 17 March 2016

China's censorship cracks?

I wonder about this article by Andrew Browne.  Writing in the Business Spectator carried in today's The Australian, I do hope he's right. Right, that is, in that there's a groundswell of opposition to Premier Xi Jinping's heavy handed muzzling of free speech in China.
I'll have to keep a closer eye on it from here in Hong Kong, as I've not seen signs of it yet. Rather the opposite in fact with the absurd and worrying snatching of five Hong Kong publishers and their spiriting away into China and staged "self criticisms ".
Later [31 March]: news today that Xi has gone crazy trying to track down the author of a letter carried in the Chinese edition of Deutche Welle, which called for Xi to step down.  The hysterical nature of the witch-hunt makes you wonder about Browne's thesis. Then again, the very nature of the letter may just support the "groundswell of opposition" line.