Comments on: China: the President’s favourite think tank takes an “Ideal Government” approach http://idealgovernment.com/2006/10/china_the_presidents_favourite_think_tank_takes_an_ideal_government_approac/ What do we want from Internet-age government? Wouldn't it be better if... Wed, 14 May 2014 08:35:11 +0000 hourly 1 By: Pete Thomson http://idealgovernment.com/2006/10/china_the_presidents_favourite_think_tank_takes_an_ideal_government_approac/comment-page-1/#comment-1138 Mon, 16 Oct 2006 12:11:07 +0000 http://china_the_presidents_favourite_think_tank_takes_an_ideal_government_approac#comment-1138 I was in China recently – for a holiday, not anything official – and got the sense that amongst “ordinary” (well, middle-class English-speaking) people it is OK to criticise, up to a point. For instance, more than one person said to us that Mao was a great man, but he wasn’t a god – he made some mistakes. (They didn’t specify what they were).

One interesting experience while we were there. We found (slightly to our surprise) that CNN was generally available in the hotels, and one evening they trailed an item about the impending 30th anniversary of Mao’s death and why it wasn’t getting big treatment in China. Well, we had to watch that – and it started, making predictably critical introductory comments – and then the screen blacked out. It came back once, briefly, in the middle of the item, and then again just before the end.

So there are limits. Or perhaps it’s also that loyalty to the nation, and to authority, does run much deeper in the Chinese culture than in ours – negative comment is not so much politically incorrect as tasteless.

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