News from Chinese Blogosphere(Aug 14th-20th) · Global Voices
Frank Dai

1. 60 Anniversary Sino-Japanese War: August 20 was the 60 anniversary marking the end of Sino-Japanese War in World War Ⅱ, lasting from 1937 to 1945. Postshow, the “Boing Boing in China”, summed up the special reports on Chinese internet. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized for the misdeed done in the war. However, many Chinese blogger thought it was not very sincere because the Japanese government still allows rightist behavior in the country like visiting Yasukuni Shrine and publishing historical textbook. Wozy pointed out that Chinese official media focused their attention on who lead to the victory rather than what Japanese is apologizing.
2. DaYe Riot and Internet Cover-ups: DaYe, a city in the Hubei Province, experienced a general strike and protest involving 10,000 residents, due to dissatisfaction with the municipal government’s decision to annex. Local police adopted a cruel way to treat the peaceful demonstration, even calling dogs to bite and disperse the residents. Zheng said soon after the protest, all BBS discussing it are temporarily closed with a notice that “services is suspended” and all searching engines including Baidu and Google began to face failure when inquiring DaYe- related words.
3. Media coverage of Chinese Blogosphere: As blog was evolving in China and steadily gaining its popularity, traditional media is putting attention to Chinese Blogosphere. Shanghai Evening News talked about the teenager’s blog and its effect on family relationship (Translation by ESWN). The Economic Observer with another article dug into what the Chinese Bloggers are considering about blog. (Translation by Danwei, though they called the article “superficial”).
4. Rural Teachers Blogging: Li Jiahou, a professor in pedagogy in Shanghai wrote an entry on his blog about the emergence of teacher’s blog in rural area. In a program initiated by Ministry of Education and Microsoft aiming to provide rural teacher with modern teaching equipment, the participating teachers are encouraged to write blog to communicate and interact with blogging students. Blog specializing in educational field has already become a common phenomenon in China recently.
5. Protest at China Youth Daily: A veteran editor left China Youth Daily, the official newspaper of China Communist Youth League . He wrote an open letter to the newspaper to criticize over editing policy, which destroyed the independence of journalist. Blogger ShiNianKanChai and Anti, Whose blog is Just Blocked in China, wrote articles supporting the move.