April 25, 2005
Linked by their phones, Chinese take to the streets
The thousands of people who poured onto the streets of China this month for the anti-Japanese protests that shook Asia were bound by nationalist anger but also by a more mundane fact: They are China's cell phone and computer generation. News.com reports.
"Few countries censor information and communications as tightly as China, which has as many as 50,000 people policing the Internet. Yet China is also now the largest cell phone market, with nearly 350 million users, while the number of Internet users is roughly 100 million and growing at 30 percent a year.
The result is a constant tension between a population hungry for freer communication and a government that regards information control as essential to its power. Anti-Japanese protesters have been able to spread information and loosely coordinate marches in a country where political organizing is illegal.
"Text messages, instant messaging and Internet bulletin boards have been the main channels for discussing this issue," said Fang Xingdong, chairman of blogchina.com, a Web site for China's growing community of bloggers. "Ten years ago, this would have been unthinkable."
Related articles:
-- China. People urged to shun unauthorized marches
-- China Tries to Ease Tensions With Japan
-- Thousands in China protest Japan bid for UN council seat
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2005/04/008069.htm
