Saturday, February 25, 2006

Shut Down Frozen Point

Frozen Point is a weekly news magazine of the Youth Daily, a daily newspaper operated by the Chinese Youth League, a peripheral CCP branch. Recent, the CCP propaganda department ordered the Frozen Point to be closed, and sacked the editor-in-chief Li Datong. The direct cause was an article published on the January 11th issue of the magazine authored by a philosophy professor Yuan Weishi of the Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou.

In his article, Mr. Yuan argued that the reason China was invaded by the western was the Chinese government did not bow to all demands made by the invaders. War and blood could have been avoided if then government had kneed down to the invaders, and kept eye closed whatever the invaders did on Chinese soil. Further, he demanded a textbook augment to reflect above opinions.

The CCP propaganda department has been notorious for doing stupid things, but not this time. The Frozen Point is an operation arm of the CCP, not a academia journal. Even an academic journal should not tolerate inaccurate, fabricated bullshit.

We would like to see the day when China has a free press, but such bullshit article wouldn't survive a day under a healthy competition of free press. The only reason Yuan's article got published is by taking advantage of the media control, executed by then deputy editor-in-chief Mr. Li Datong. What happened next is the CCP correcting the mess in its own way. This incident has nothing to do with free press. It's an misuse of public media for personal agenda, which does not align with either social conscious or professional guidance.

Mr. Li Datong, get lost!

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