China : Comment
China's Rule of Law is in Full Retreat - Mar 3, 2010 - 9:27:54 AM
Attending today's lunch and hearing so much praise makes me feel very uneasy.   I don't know how many times I have celebrated my birthday this year, and here comes Sun Guodong, hosting yet another event.

The first celebration was with fellow scholars and the second with my family, but I felt like something was missing.  There was no event with lawyers, or rather we might say some lawyers wanted to have a birthday celebration for me but didn't have a chance.  I think today's event might settle that.  However, in listening to these words of praise my ears have pricked up, as I must say you have expressed aspirations I have definitely never fulfilled.  Perhaps it was just the circumstances around me.  Because today the situation for the rule of law in China is grim.  So in these circumstances perhaps your expectations of me are even higher.  But I think I have not been able to do enough.

China : Comment
China's IDN flop, Who to blame? - Feb 26, 2010 - 7:21:02 PM
On Jan. 21, 2010, ICANN approved the first four internationalized top-level domain names. Egypt, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have passed the language character (string) evaluation. An alarming shock to the Chinese internet communities, China being one of the pioneers in IDN policy & development exploration, is not on the list. ICANN declined to comment after its news release when approached by Chinese internet news reporters. Insider source has point the failure directly to Rod Beckstrom, the new ICANN CEO & former US National Security Agency Chief. Did Rod Beckstrom really failed China's IDN application as "inspired" by the US government?

China : Comment
The Elite’s 'Cultural Superpower' Dream and Han Han’s Dream of 'Harmonious Existence' - Feb 25, 2010 - 7:38:15 AM

The lead article in the current issue of Nanfang Zhoumo [Southern Weekend] is entitled “Is it possible to become a cultural superpower; if so, how?” Written by Yi Zhong–tian, the intention was to pour a little cold water on the ruling elite’s dreams of becoming a “cultural superpower.” The article concluded that “becoming a ‘cultural superpower’ should not be the wishful thinking of an elite minority, but the common pursuit of all citizens.  If its citizens can live in dignity, China will have dignity; only if they have culture in their lives will China have any culture. Only on this basis can we produce influential figures, ideas and works. For a people’s practical experience is the source of its culture.” [1] (Translator’s note: Yi Zhongtian 易中天: Professor in the Academy of Humanities, Xiamen University; intellectual and TV personality. Known as “Superman of Scholars,” gained popularity in CCTV’s ‘Lecture Room’ for his retellings of history.)

China : Comment
Written Interview with Kalon Tripa Prof. S. Rinpoche - Feb 24, 2010 - 6:48:14 PM

Prof. S. Rinpoche  is Kalon Tripa (First Minsiter) of Tibetan Govenment-in-exile and Prof. Bi Yantao is Director of Center for Communication Studies, Hainan University, P.R. China.

China : Comment
I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement - Feb 5, 2010 - 4:42:15 PM
June 1989 was the major turning point in my 50 years on life’s road.  Before that, I was a member of the first group of students after restoration of the college entrance examination after the Cultural Revolution (1977); my career was a smooth ride, from undergraduate to grad student and through to PhD. After graduation I stayed on as a lecturer at Beijing Normal University. On the podium, I was a popular teacher, well received by students. I was also a public intellectual: in the 1980s I published articles and books that created an impact. I was frequently invited to speak in different places, and invited to go abroad to Europe and the US as a visiting scholar. What I required of myself was: to live with honesty, responsibility and dignity both as a person and in my writing. Subsequently, because I had returned from the US to take part in the 1989 movement, I was imprisoned for “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement to crime,” losing the platform I loved; I was never again allowed to publish or speak in public in China. Simply for expressing divergent political views and taking part in a peaceful and democratic movement, a teacher lost his podium, a writer lost the right to publish, and a public intellectual lost the chance to speak publicly. This was a sad thing, both for myself as an individual, and, after three decades of reform and opening, for China.