On this episode of China Uncensored,
could I interest you in a set of beautiful,
leather-bound,
pre-censored encyclopedias?
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored,
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
The Chinese Communist Party
has a big problem on its hands.
Uh, I’m not talking about North Korea.
Or a faltering economy either.
Or even children spending too much time on their phones.
I’m talking about Wikipedia.
Wikipedia simply refuses to take into consideration
the unique societal conditions of Chinese...society.
And by that I mean
they refuse to censor content.
Wikipedia Co-Founder Jimmy Wales
has said he would rather have no Wikipedia in China
than comply with any form of censorship.
Well Jimmy,
wishes do come true.
Because when pesky Western companies
refuse to comply with draconian censorship demands,
what’s a totalitarian regime gonna do?
Simply create their own knockoff!
The Chinese internet is like
a bizarro version of the global Internet.
Because the Chinese Communist Party has certain things
that they would rather Chinese people
not know about,
many of the websites that we're used to seeing
on the rest of the Internet are blocked.
Like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
Don't worry,
China has its own censored versions of these.
And at long last,
the Chinese regime is coming out
with its own version of Wikipedia,
creatively named “Chinese Encyclopedia.”
And it will roll out sometime next year.
You see, the problem with Wikipedia
is that its content is generated
by the users themselves.
People around the world create, edit,
and re-edit the articles.
So people can post all kind of false information about...
various squares...
and massacres that may or may not
have happened inside them.
The Chinese Encyclopedia gets around this problem
because the government directly employed
“more than 20,000 authors from universities
and research institutes.”
So you can be sure,
the Chinese Encyclopedia won’t even
need to be censored.
Because it comes pre-censored!
Like those bags of spinach at the supermarket
that are prewashed.
Wait...Shelley,
I still need to wash those?
Really?
Anyway, the Editor in Chief
of the pre-censored encyclopedia,
Yang Muzhi, said in a meeting
at the Chinese Academy of Sciences
that “The Chinese Encyclopaedia is not a book,
but a Great Wall of culture.”
Yes, a Great Wall of culture!
That will keep out the angry hordes of...
information.
So why is China putting so many resources
into the Chinese Encyclopedia?
“Yang [Muzhi] told the meeting
China was under international pressure
and felt an urgent need to produce its own encyclopaedia
to ‘guide and lead the public and society.’”
Because if there’s anything the international community
has been begging China to do,
it's do a better job guiding and leading
the Chinese public and society—
by censoring them.
Wikipedia, which turns 16 this year—
don’t worry, you're not old—
has never had it easy in China.
The Chinese version was launched in 2004
and right away resulted in flame wars.
Is Taiwan a country?
What’s the nationality of someone in Hong Kong?
Is the Dalai Lama the anti-christ?
Users in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
all had very different views.
And this was the problem:
People were actually using Internet forums
to broaden their horizons.
One 17-year-old Wikipedia editor from Shanghai
told the New York Times,
“I was furious when I came across
terms like Taiwan and the Republic of China.
But after more interactions,
I understand how people in Taiwan think,
and I become much more tolerant.”
Which is exactly WHAT HE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO!
Mainland Chinese kids these days…
Mainland users have had intermittent access
to Wikipedia.
But the Great Firewall of China blocks user access
to topics like the Dalai Lama and Falun Gong.
Then there was the time in 2015
Jimmy Wales went to China’s World Internet Conference.
Yes, the Chinese regime holds
a World Internet Conference,
despite having the world’s least free internet.
Which would be like me hosting
the State Administration of Press,
Publication, Radio, Film and Television's
annual State-Run Media Correspondents Dinner.
Xi Jinping really killed it this year
with his long-drawn out monologue.
In a speech,
Jimmy Wales said that
thanks to technological changes in the future,
“The idea that any one government
can control the flow of information
of what people know in their territory
will become completely antiquated
and no longer possible.”
But then the Chinese media, um, fixed his quote...
to be pro-Chinese government surveillance.
Yes, that is actually what they changed it to.
You know, China has one of the longest continuous histories
in human civilization
partially because Chinese people
have always revered their history and culture.
Some recent exceptions may apply.
The first edition of the Chinese Encyclopedia
was created by a group of idealistic Chinese scholars.
Many of them had been persecuted
during the Cultural Revolution
and wanted to "enlighten the people
with knowledge and modern ideas
and avoid similar catastrophes
in the future.”
Hundreds of scientists, historians, artists and writers
worked on it and in 1993,
the first 74-volume edition was released.
But unfortunately for those involved,
their efforts to enlighten people with knowledge
came with a few hiccups.
The entire thing was funded
by the Chinese government,
“which resulted in omissions and distortions
for political purposes.”
So when the head of the Wikimedia Foundation said,
“If governments try to get us
to take information down,
we don’t.
We have very strong encryption technology
that means that if you choose to block Wikimedia [sites]
you block ‘all of it’ or ‘none of it.’
We found most places in the world
choose ‘none.’”
I don’t think they were really ready for China.
What do you think about China’s
state-sponsored encyclopedia?
Leave your comments below.
Once again I’m your host Chris Chappell.
See you next time.