Word: falun
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...when you're on it you can pretty much do whatever you want. But seen from China, the Web is very different. Beijing employs a force of 30,000 Internet censors 24/7, blocking access to many sites expressing nonapproved opinions on hot-button issues like Taiwanese independence and the Falun Gong religious sect. When Western Web surfers search for images of "Tiananmen" on Google, they get row upon row of tanks, the indelible afterimage of the tragedy of 1989. Do the same search when you're in China, and you get a snapshot of U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez...
...turns out, a scary place for certain norms of Chinese governance.Many of the sites made inaccessible by what has been coined “The Great Firewall” are those discussing specific high-tension questions of Chinese politics: sites detailing the lot of the controversial Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong, sites about the Tiananmen Square protests, and some others about Taiwanese independence. Also blocked, however, are sources of general international news—the BBC web site, for example, can only be intermittently reached from within Chinese borders.Of course, firewalls aren’t perfect, but the Chinese government...
...long as you were alone. The government can still be brutal--particularly with anyone who tries to organize politically. Remember Falun Gong? After 10,000 practitioners of the meditation philosophy showed up outside Beijing's leadership compound in 1999 to protest discrimination, the government launched an effort to wipe out the religion, arresting and, according to believers, beating thousands of members. In China's Northwest, the government has jailed ethnic Uighurs who complained about Han Chinese repression of Islamic culture. The government also controls the media (a Chinese assistant in the New York Times's Beijing bureau was detained...
...political work. Factor in the increasing intensity of engagement across the board (as well as the pace of globalization more generally) and it's clear that Canberra's China nannies are a busy bunch. A single incident or issue - hardball iron-ore price negotiations, the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual movement or the defection of a Chinese diplomat, such as Chen Yonglin, the senior consular official in Sydney who has sought political asylum in Australia - is not likely to bring about an irreversible deterioration in relations. The diplomatic game quickly moves...
...political gulf between the two countries; to take a reality check on the diplomatic dynamic; and to get a sense of where the relationship is heading. For some, Chen's lurid allegations about kidnapping, a vast system of espionage involving Chinese nationals in Australia, and the harassment of Falun Gong, seem out of kilter with a China making its reputation on the fecundity of its factories and new millionaires. The wonder of China's economic progress has tended to blot out other considerations about that country's present. Chen has restored some of the balance; not by making China...