Howard French on Chinese Wikipedia
NY Times correspondent Howard French plunges into Wikipedia and takes a comparative look at entries in English and Chinese. He didn’t waste any time going straight to the article on the big man himself – Mao. He concludes the versions take very different views:
Indeed, in its present form, the Chinese Wikipedia introduction to Mao Zedong could hardly be more anodyne: “One of the main founders and leaders of the Communist Party of China, the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Republic of China,” it reads. “He introduced a series of political movements such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. He had a great influence over 20th-century China and the world.”
On the evidence of entries like this, for the moment, the fight over editorial direction of Wikipedia in Chinese is being won by enthusiasts who practice self-censorship.
I don’t doubt it’s hard for PRC folks to write critically of Mao. It’s too out of bounds, too much against their conditioning, even under a cloak of anonymous editing.
What about Chinese Wikipedia editors outside the PRC? Do they provide a counter-balance? Even armed with the full range of facts, you have to be pretty brave or determined to face the contentuous edit wars that would ensue. Even then, it’s often hard to get Taiwan and Hong Kong Wikipedians interested in the particulars of PRC history.
Which brings me to a question I ask all the time – with Chinese culture holding up first and foremost the values of “harmony” and “prosperity,” where does that leave the pursuit of the truth? I don’t ask this question rhetorically – when teaching and lecturing about the media around Hong Kong and China, I often wondered about this because that is the essence of journalism – the pursuit of the truth. What motivated Chinese students to study journalism? Why would Chinese journalists want to practice their craft better? What Chinese traditions fuel the motivation for better journalism, and for open and honest reflection on history?
As a product of a Western Judeo-Christian environment, I come from a very different angle than the Chinese in the region. My belief in a vigorous and free press is a belief that it is a necessary condition for a functioning transparent liberal democracy. One may wish this was a universal endeavour, but it is not. It depends greatly on prevailing societal values.
As for understanding these Chinese values, Taoism and Confucianism provide a starting point, but neither are actively interpreted or dogmatically adhered to in contemporary culture. They provide a backdrop for the modern Chinese social and work ethic, but they are not adequate in themselves to predict the emergence of a bold quest for the truth. Buddhism is centered around the individual, rather than the functions of society, and is not very instructive in this area either.
So I do ponder this question. A lot.
What it means for a Chinese Wikipedia, and what it means for China.
November 29th, 2006 15:58
When you were teaching did any of your students ever take on this question for a dissertation?
November 29th, 2006 18:09
Kevin, no one that I know of. It would be interested to hear of any writings in this area.
November 29th, 2006 21:31
Howard French’s article was dreadful since there was an important fact which he did not mention
http://twofish.wordpress.com/2006/11/30/note-on-new-york-times-article-about-wikipedia-slant/
It is true that the negative aspects of Mao’s rule were deleted from the Chinese article on Mao. However, what is also true (and you can see it if you go to the article itself) is that the positive aspects of Mao’s rule were also deleted. The result of this is that the Chinese article on Mao is not more or less favorable toward Mao than the English version. There were two political compromises reached (I remember because I was involved). English wikipedia choose to put both a positive and negative statement about Mao in the summary. Chinese wikipedia choose to put neither. I don’t think it can be argued that the Chinese wikipedia compromise was “worse” or “more untrue” than the English wikipedia compromise.
There is an irony here that an article about selective editing to fit a political view leaves out an important fact….
November 30th, 2006 01:33
As a former student of Andrew’s, I can say that this question, and the other questions Andrew asks, were asked often, but, predictably, they were not fully answered in any case that I can remember.
As a western journalist who has noticeably rubbed my fellow Chinese colleagues the wrong way in certain discussions about press freedom, truth, ethics, etc., I wondered aloud a lot about what is considered the true China story. Often, I got something short of a direct answer to that question. Usually, it was a shade of the truth, and usually it was admitted that to write in China means to write halfway and to write towards allusion and not towards pinpointing a fact. There are just too many complications, too much scrutiny about what a journalist does and not enough ethics in the region.
I will post something about this on my blog at CNET, because I think it’s increasingly more relevant as Chinese bloggers swarm the digital space with their intelligent musings on their culture.
November 30th, 2006 02:00
I wrote about this at length on Rebecca’s blog.
Your conclusion is extremely narrowed minded. The basis of your conclusion is that you think that what you know about Mao is the correct version of history. What you have read about Mao is nothing but propaganda esp. if it is written in English.
Basically, the people who are making this complain is annoyed that the Chinese people are not acknowledging their version of history – that Mao killed 50 million people or something like that.
I took a look at the entry for the British Empire.
How come I do not see articles that were critical of the British Empire? Do you know that the British Empire killed my grandfather in Malaysia? They didn’t build good hospitals so my grandfather didn’t get good health care. The British Empire also did not provide us, Malaysians with social security payments. As a result, none of my uncles or aunts graduated from high school. All had to quit school to help the family. Did you know that during the time of British Empire, we were so hungry we literally tied our stomach with belt? I’m sure many people died of hunger, as our lives were considered pretty good despite those hardship. There were many who were sent to work at mines, toiled day and night, infected by various diseases like malaria etc. etc.
So is it right for me to blame the British Empiire for our families’ hardship?
I’m sure many Chinese died during Mao because Mao didn’t build good hospitals. I’m sure many had hard lives and that deterioriated their health because Mao did not institute a social security system. And I’m sure Mao is also at fault becasue he could have built the 3 gorges dam back in 1955 then there wouldn’t be floods to destroy those crops.
However, the country at that time was incapable of those luxuries. The Nationalist government took all the coffers with them, leaving practically nothing for the Chinese people on mainland.
In fact, when comparing the astrocities of Mao and the British Empire, the British Empire was more evil because as the largest empire in the world at that time, surely they could have build first class hospitals in Malaysia, surely they could have provided us, their colonial subjects with social security payments and free or affordable healthcare. If the British government treated Malaysians who were their colonial subjects as well as they treat their citizens, I could have lived to see my grandfather.
So why do we not see critical articles written about the British Empire about this? Its the same reason for why Chinese people do not write about Mao that way. They just do not see how they can blame those deaths on Mao when there was never any intent to murder.
Also, please take a look at those English sources on Mao. Many of them are written by people who have not even seen Mao in person. They basically went to the library, read a few books and put together a compilation.
If Jon and Halliday’s book can make it into wikipedia as a source then you know the article has been hijacked by propaganda. See:
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/changhalliday.htm
“By stating that Mao Zedong was responsible for over 70 million Chinese deaths during peacetime, the first sentence of Chang and Halliday�s highly revisionist biography of the Great Helmsman sets the tune that is carried throughout the book with remarkable dedication.”
November 30th, 2006 02:11
I can assure you OK, that if Mao actually ordered 50 million people to be executed with a bullet, the Chinese would not hesitate to label him a murderer on wikipedia.
The 50 million who died or so, did not die from executions. They died from hardship. Who in China was not suffering from hardship at that time? We in Malaysia had it better by the 1960s, but in the 1930s, we were probably just like the Chinese in mainland china. Diseases, bad hospitals, low pay, long working hours all led to many people dying, and the lives of thse people could have easily been saved by the rich and resourceful British Empire. Mao at least could defend that China was poor but the British Empire was rich! The most powerful nation in the world at that time.
November 30th, 2006 03:35
Send Howard French Back to Africa…
I have found Howard W. French consistently disappointing when it comes to reporting China for the New York Times. In Wikipedia terms, he’s not very NPOV. He paints the Mao Zedong Wiki article as a reflection of government censorship, when……