Shanghai // Current

Did Obama smuggle a little democracy into China?

I was watching Obama's town hall meeting with students in Shanghai last night. As he wrapped up his prepared remarks, stepped away from the podium, and began to explain the format of the town hall portion I realized that this might be absolutely foreign to many of these students. Here is a country's President, a very famous and powerful man, asking them to raise their hands and ask him a question. Whatever they asked him, he'd answer. We obviously take this sort of thing for granted - heck our most recent town halls seem to have devolved into purely shouting at our elected officials. But I couldn't shake the feeling that Obama, who was not joined on stage by any major Chinese official, had smuggled a little democracy into the PRC.

[Video is featured. This video of his introducing the concept is from CNN and their anchor, predictably, talks all over him, but you can hear the second half. If anyone can find a clean video - I'll replace this one with it.]

He also, and this was the headlining remark, asserted the American position that it's okay for everyone to use Twitter.

"President Barack Obama pointedly nudged China on Monday to stop censoring Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House and suggesting Beijing need not fear a little criticism...."I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," Obama told students during his first-ever trip to China. "They can begin to think for themselves."

If the President's goal was to sneak a little democracy into the People's Republic, it seems to have not reached too many citizens. The event was not broadcast nationally - only on local Shanghai stations - and the live feed from the White House web site was reportedly choppy and hard to watch in China.

FROM THE BLOG: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/16/did-obama-smuggle-a-little-democracy-into-china/

SOURCES: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-holds-town-hall-chinese-students-introduces-us/story?id=9091246&page=2
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091116/ap_on_bi_ge/obama
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2009/11/15/live-blogging-obamas-shanghai-town-hall/I was watching Obama's town hall meeting with students in Shanghai last night. As he... more

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China Digital Times » Japanese and Chinese Students Fight in Shanghai

Shanghai International Studies University saw violent clashes this week between Chinese and Japanese students, who had to be dispersed by police. Looking at the report, it's scary how such a small fight between some university students could escalate into so much violence and nationalist sentiments. The translated report, from CDT, is below:

"On October 20, 2008, about 10 P.M., over ten Japanese students were getting drunk and causing a disturbance in the school square. Their noise could be heard from every corner of the campus, which made the boys living on the 9th floor of the boy’s dormitory extremely upset. To protest against the Japanese, the 9th floor students sprinkled some water on the Japanese, resulting in the ten Japanese directly charging into the dorm to beat the two boys so severely that they had to be sent to the hospital.

After the beating, the 10 Japanese immediately fled the dorm room, and the students who heard the news immediately rushed downstairs to confront the Japanese students. At the time, the situation was chaotic. The police immediately dispatched special police to escort and evacuate over 10 Japanese from the school. Not only was the square swarming with patriotic students, I estimate there were approximately several hundred people. Over 10 police vehicles came one by one to maintain order, with everyone standing around watching each other for about 20 minutes.

Under the direction of several students, the students sang the national anthem, marching to the international guest house [the dormitory for international/foreign/study abroad students] to continue their protest against Japanese people. However, the police blocked off the entrance to the international guest house. At this time, we could see Koreans also hanging up their Korean flag. As the student protests increased, there were some foreigners upstairs in the international guest house (it was too dark to see clearly) throwing glass bottles down, causing the situation to escalate…only after the person in charge of the school immediately put forward that the first three students who knew what happened come forth and communicate with the Japanese did the university students calm down and behave themselves.

An angry crowd forms after a group of Japanese students allegedly attacked two Chinese students at Shanghai International Studies University.

An angry crowd forms after a group of Japanese students allegedly attacked two Chinese students at Shanghai International Studies University."

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