Chinese government, nervous about comparisons between Tahrir and Tiananmen

[ajtr]

Beijing looks warily at Egypt uprising​

The Chinese government, nervous about comparisons between Tahrir and Tiananmen, is downplaying Egyptian protesters' joy and emphasizing the need for stability in Cairo.

Reporting from Beijing —
Wary of the parallels between Tahrir and Tiananmen, Beijing is hardly celebrating the popular uprising in Egypt that brought down an authoritarian regime.

The Chinese government offered a sobering assessment Saturday of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement that China hoped "the latest developments help restore national stability and social order at an early date."

News coverage of the 18-day uprising has emphasized looting, rioting and violence, while downplaying the jubilation of the protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square. A short editorial Saturday in the state-run English-language China Daily used the word "stability," a favorite of the Chinese Communist Party, seven times. It warned that "any political changes will be meaningless if the country falls prey to chaos in the end."
But Chinese dissidents and critics greeted Mubarak's downfall with undisguised glee.

"Today, we are all Egyptian,'' Ai Weiwei, a dissident and artist, said in a Twitter posting. "It only took 18 days for the collapse of a military regime which was in power for 30 years and looked harmonious and stable. This thing [the Chinese government] that has been for 60 years may take several months.''

In a bold retort to the party's rhetoric about stability, the influential new business magazine Caixin editorialized on its Web page Saturday: "It is autocracy that creates chaos, while democracy breeds peace. Supporting an autocracy is in reality trading short-term interests for long-term costs."

From the beginning of the protests in Egypt last month, the Chinese propaganda machine sought to limit and direct coverage. Although the story was too big to expunge, news media were directed to run reports only from the state-run New China News Agency. On some social networking sites, searches for the word "Egypt" were blocked.

As in Egypt, China's leadership in 1989 was challenged by a nationwide, popular uprising.

Although those protests were famously quashed by the tanks that rolled into Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government has reason to watch events in Egypt with trepidation. China, like Egypt, is plagued by high inflation and unemployment rates among recent university graduates.

"Our economy is doing much better than Egypt's, but the political systems have some striking similarities," said Minxin Pei, a Chinese-born political scientist at Claremont McKenna College.

"Both regimes have narrow bases of support in their society, which means the system is fundamentally fragile.… And there's been this obsession with stability, which prevents governments from taking the necessary reforms to open up the political system."

barbara.demick@latimes.com

 

[Roybot]

Every journalist in the world decided to write about China today . It must be a record of some sorts.

 

[below_freezing]

Wall Street's quite narrow. It's only 20 meters wide. Compare that to the length of the US. Another despotic regime was calling for stability in Egypt too. It's leaders sit in Washington DC and NYC.

 

[Developereo]

Stupid article.

Egyptians were complaining mainly about economic conditions and lack of governance. Chinese are happy with their government on both counts.

 

[Zeeshan360]

@Sohni -
It's also about Freedom of Speech and getting rid of many restrictions like that of cencorship
on internet

 

[Brotherhood]

Yeah, Chinese government is so nervous about the uprising in Egypt to broadcast live situtation on CCTV and all those official media?
Btw, this one is on the "headline" of today's news:

Israeli Arabs celebrate Mubarak's resignation - People's Daily Online February 13, 2011

More than 1,000 Israeli Arabs attended a rally Saturday in Israeli northern town of Nazareth to celebrate the ouster of Egypt's long-time President Hosni Mubarak.

Waving Egyptian, Tunisian and Palestinian flags, participants held up signs saying "The Egyptian people are heroes."

Hanin Zuabi, member of Israel's Knesset (parliament) from Balad Party which organized the celebration, told Xinhua she believed the stepping down of Mubarak was not a matter relevant only to Egypt, but also to the whole Arab world.

"I think it will affect the whole politics in the Middle East and Arab world. As Egypt is the leader of the Arab world, the foreign affairs and foreign policy of Egypt will affect all of the Arab countries," she said.

The legislator criticized that Mubarak's authority cared more about the interest of the United States and Israel instead of the Arabs.

She hoped the new Egyptian authority would implement pro-Arab foreign policy, "because it is the desire of the people."

"The establishment of a Palestinian state is also an expression of the power of the people and their rights," she added.

The Balad's spokesperson Tareq Berkdar described it a great moment of history for Egyptian and the Arab world in general, and said "we are hoping that Egypt could back to the Arab world and Arab world's leadership."

Mubarak stepped down on Friday afternoon as the Egyptian military took charge of the country, after more than two weeks of mass protests against his 30-year rule.

Source: Xinhua

PS, becareful with the "unknown" site of the thread article, i got a "warning alert" for it.

 

[Agnostic_Indian]

China stresses need for stability in Egypt By Sebastien Blanc (AFP ) – 1 day ago BEIJING — China called for a swift return of public order in Egypt while the tightly controlled media glossed over details of the popular uprising that forced president Hosni Mubarak from power. [BOLD] Online discussion about the protests has been muffled since the turmoil began, in a sign that the unrest is worrying Beijing, which restricts content seen as a potential challenge to the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party . Internet forums appeared firmly under the censors' control Saturday , while newspapers limited their coverage to the official Xinhua news agency ' s reports and avoided the underlying political factors and calls for democracy . [BOLD] " China hopes that the latest development of the situation helps Egypt with the restoration of national stability and public order as soon as possible ," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said . Some channels on state television network CCTV briefly reported Mubarak ' s fall after nearly 30 years in power, with footage of protesters cheering . The Beijing Youth Daily reported that Mubarak had stepped down , but did not mention the underlying grievances behind the uprising. The Beijing News noted that hundreds of thousands of people were involved in the protest movement , emphasising that Egypt ' s vice -president had urged people "to return home and go back to work as soon as possible " . Ma ' s comments were echoed in the official media, with the English -language China Daily saying in an editorial that " social stability should be of overriding importance " . The 18 days of protests that eventually forced Mubarak from office had caused "havoc" and disrupted people ' s daily lives, it added . Since the beginning of the turmoil , China 's coverage has stressed Cairo ' s lawlessness and the need for order to be restored . China is extremely sensitive to any news involving social unrest , having experienced its own uprisings in Tibet and the mainly Muslim Xinjiang region of northwestern China in 2008 and 2009 -- both of which were put down . Its leaders have faced mounting public discontent in recent years over issues including persistent reports of abusive government officials , environmental damage and now surging inflation. Since the beginning of the Egyptian turmoil , keyword Internet searches on the protests returned no results on microblogs and reader discussion of news reports about Egypt was disabled on major portals . A search under the word "Egypt " on microblogs such as that on popular web portal sina .com resulted in a message saying the search result could not be shown " based on the relevant laws, regulations and policies". While state -run newspapers and television have reported on the events in Egypt and Tunisia , readers have not been allowed to post remarks . On web portal netease. com, a message this week said the comment section had been closed. One dissident said this week that police in southwest China had barred activists from distributing leaflets about Egypt and Tunisia, deeming the news too sensitive . Beijing ' s reaction to the Egypt situation recalls similar curbs put in place during social upheaval in Eastern Europe a decade ago . But the explosive growth of microblogs in China has emerged as a new challenge for censors seeking to control public discussion . China blocked Twitter in 2009 after barring other high-profile foreign Internet services such as YouTube and Facebook. Twitter and Facebook in particular were crucial in the Egypt protests . Despite being banned in China, imitations have filled the void to a degree and drawn an enthusiastic following from the country' s 457 million Internet users. Netizens have seized on the platform as a new avenue for mass discourse but controversial issues remain blocked, either directly by the government or by providers hoping to avoid trouble.AFP: China stresses need for stability in Egypt

 

[webber]

Chinese government is lame

but still india is more corrupted and killing peasants rebels everyday

 

[chinapakistan]

@Brotherhood

Hey, bro. You are seriously lack of mercy to indian. You always make them have no where to hide........ ::

@Topic
Why this article have no source? just a email address.
barbara.demick@latimes.com

 

[below_freezing]

Egypt has rigged elections. We have free elections. Our leaders stay in power for 10 years and leave peacefully and do not have even close to absolute power. Egypt was ruled by 1 man with absolute power for 30 years.

We are not worried about this. We are openly studying the Egyptian situation and openly discussing it among experts.

????????

We also have electronic ballots now. You can see the people cast votes.

º¼ÖÝ»ù²ãÑ¡¾ÙʹÓõç×ÓͶƱ ΪÖйúÊ×Àý(×éͼ)_ÍøÒ×ÐÂÎÅÖÐÐÄ

We are even analyzing problems in our election system.

Öйú»ù²ãÑ¡¾ÙÓÐ5´óÎÊÌâ ͶƱ·½Ê½´æËæÒâ±äͨ(ͼ)_ÍøÒ×ÐÂÎÅÖÐÐÄ

You can vote by registering at your residency committee.

But we all know elections everywhere are a scam anyways. Just some are more blatantly dishonest than others. I don't bother voting, since the candidates behave the same in significant matters anyways. The quality of government has little to do with the specific persons selected (but there is a relation; we have elections specifically to try to filter out the worst people) and everything to do with culture, IQ and average developmental level.

 

[W.11]

look at china and look at egypt, one is loaning money to USA, and one is taking aids from USA

 

[Zeeshan360]

@Brotherhood

Hey, bro. You are seriously lack of mercy to indian. You always make them have no where to hide........ ::

@Topic
Why this article have no source? just a email address.
barbara.demick@latimes.com

U ppl those who r supporting China are currently staying in Japan or HK.
U ppl enjoy all kinds of freedom there coz they r democratic countries

I can access each and every website available.
Can u Chinese do that ??

 

[below_freezing]

In fact, despite all elections being useless scams, ours are still less useless than many countries out there. At least we can filter out the worst criminals with our system. Some systems (Phillipines, and other southern nations) can't even filter out the corrupt criminals.

U ppl those who r supporting China are currently staying in Japan or HK.
U ppl enjoy all kinds of freedom there coz they r democratic countries

I can access each and every website available.
Can u Chinese do that ??

check my post earlier. the first link you get when you search Chinese Democracy in Baidu is a government site all about democratic reform.

 

[chinapakistan]

U ppl those who r supporting China are currently staying in Japan or HK.
U ppl enjoy all kinds of freedom there coz they r democratic countries

I can access each and every website available.
Can u Chinese do that ??

No, but chinese can access to food, good healthy care, good education which your 80% population cant. Agree? my uper castle fellow.::

 

[Agnostic_Indian]

When the people fear their government , there is tyranny; when the government fears the people , there is liberty .-
Thomas Jefferson