Did anyone get a chance to watch PBS' Frontline yesterday evening? It was a captivating episode about China since the 1989 Tienanmen Square protests through today and creatively wrapped around the "tank man." Remember, the guy who, after hundreds of people were killed and thousands injured, suicidally stood in front of those Chinese tanks?
I was wondering if anyone else was as creeped out by this Frontline episode as I was? I mean, here in America we're kind of given the story line that China's huge economic success is a great thing, but it was hard to believe that after watching Frontline last night. We've almost forgotten that the Chinese government is still under one party Communist rule, but last night for those of us watching, we were reminded in stark detail how authoritarian the Chinese Communist government still is.
Its newly minted 250 million middle class citizens seem to live in a Matrix-esque kind of situation. The government has enabled them to have their cars, cell phones, computers, fashions, etc. with the understanding that no one will decide to take the red pill. And for those who do, Yahoo will help the Chinese government track down the IP addresses that are being used by red pill takers. Google helps the government by preventing anyone from learning about the red pill and Cisco provides the networking capabilities for the government to find out if anyone is researching the red pill on the Internet. Totally creepy.
A Frontline journalist showed the famous Tank Man photo to four Chinese university students, and not one of them had any idea what the photo was. One thought maybe it was a parade. The photo has been censored out of existence in China, and Google has helped make that possible.
As for the other 750 million Chinese citizens... well, it seems they've been left behind either in poverty stricken rural areas or poverty stricken urban areas where they work in sweat shops for slave wages, which usually get cut rather than raised because companies like Wal-Mart demand cheaper socks and bed spreads from the vendors who employ the sweat shop workers.
There is some seriously disturbing video clips in the Frontline episode. What makes it even more disturbing is the fact that the US is so completely and utterly dependent on China's goods and debt financing. So don't buy things made in China... oh, I forgot everything is made in China.
You're not alone. I feel so bad, so ashamed watching this significant piece. Good to know that not all the people forget it. The problem is, does that make any difference?
Posted by: bellevue | April 19, 2006 at 09:08 AM